Unions and workers are standing firm to save one of the city's best-known factories, Rex Trueform, and protect more than 1 000 jobs.
The Salt River factory, which opened its doors 67 years ago, is facing closure because of the strong rand, cheap imports flooding the market and changes in consumers' style habits.
The SA Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) met Rex Trueform workers at the union's offices on Monday to discuss a written notification sent to the union late last week by Rex Trueform management.
"Most of the workers voted to give the union a mandate to fight for their jobs at this factory, where they have worked for most of their lives," said Ebrahim Patel, general secretary of Sactwu.
Cosatu regional secretary Tony Ehrenreich backed the union.
"What people must know is that we as the workers and Cosatu will not allow this factory to close down. All workers must mobilise immediately in defence of Rex Trueform because it is really the icon of the clothing industry in the Western Cape."
Patel said the union was exploring all options as it entered a consultation process with Rex Trueform. This included looking at ways to make it commercially viable for the old company to stay open.
"Rex Trueform is not staring financial ruin in the face," Patel said. Instead of focusing on the losses it claims to have sustained over the past few years, its retail outlet Queenspark "needs to source more of its goods from Rex Trueform".
Patel said the closure would have a social and economic domino effect.
"The social cost of retrenching 1 000 workers would be devastating, because it would affect everything from health to education, and the level of human misery in our city will rise
dramatically," he said.
Patel also pointed out that the closure of the factory would impact adversely on the industrial policy in the manufacturing sector.
He said the union had embarked upon a programme of intense consultation with workers to inform them of their legal rights in the process of engagement.
He noted that the union would "seek verifiable information from the company to evaluate the arguments put forward by Rex Trueform".
Rex Trueform said that the company had notified the union that it wanted to start a consultation process over the future of the plant and the jobs.
"We've been losing money for six years now because our clothing manufacturing operation is expensive, and in the process we have sustained losses of R60 million," said Rex Trueform chief executive Catherine Radowsky.
The firm's export capability had been severely curtailed by the strength of the rand and unfair competition from countries in the East, which had cornered the export market in the clothing industry.
