It was the end of an era.
Shortly before 2pm on Tuesday hundreds of people, mainly women, poured out of the doors of the Rex Trueform factory in Main Road, Salt River, near Cape Town - for the last time.
Some of them sobbing, others simply looking grim, they marched under banners reading "Goodbye Rex Trueform 2005" and "Goodbye and God bless Rex Trueform 2005" to the nearby SA Clothing and Textile Workers Union hall for their final farewells.
"... Rex Trueform is ending, but I am going into a new direction," said Sharon Lombard, one of the now defunct textile factory's long-term employees.
In the hall the retrenched workers danced and cried and hugged each other as they witnessed the signing of a rescue agreement between the new owner, Fred Robinson of Brimstone, and Catherine Radowski, owner of Rex Trueform, the company built up by her grandfather and father.
In terms of the agreement, all workers will get a retrenchment package double the statutory minimum. From next month a limited trouser-making operation will resume at the factory, and in January the House of Monatic, Brimstone's flagship enterprise, will start operations at the plant under the Rex Trueform label.
Brimstone is expected to employ 500 people, and it is hoped another 500 will find work in the cluster of independent cut, make and trim operators who will work from the building.
The House of Monatic will source orders in the market.
Cutter Clive Ruiters, who had been with Rex Trueform for 35 years, said: "What we are witnessing today (Tuesday) is historic, and it is possibly the only time a worker in the textile industry has witnessed this."
His words were echoed by shop steward Gregory Hoedermaker, who reminded workers of the efforts by Sactwu in negotiating the generous retrenchment packages with management.
This prompted workers to burst into impromptu song "When someone loves you", after which the tears flowed.
Premier Ebrahim Rasool, whose mother had worked for Rex Trueform, told the crowd: "After listening to the stories of people who have been retrenched ... my problems resulting from the ANC conference at the weekend are relatively minor." This was a reference to the fact that he had lost his position as chairperson of the ANC in the Western Cape.
Rasool said it was at the initiative of President Thabo Mbeki that the new Rex Trueform, under the ownership of Brimstone and the House of Monatic, had come into being. It would flourish and realise the dream of a phoenix rising.
Rasool then looked out over the gathering and said: "When I sit and listen to Christian and Muslim people here, I know that I am in a place where faith is strong."
Fred Robinson of Brimstone said: "Rex Trueform is part of our history, and what has happened here is an important step toward our own people taking control of these concerns."
But despite the money in the pockets and the camaraderie of Tuesday's farewell, the workers were apprehensive about what lay ahead.
Elize Balie, who has worked in Rex Trueform's warehouse department for 25 years, put it best.
"Some of us have been here 15 years, and others have been here almost 50 years, but we all have to grapple with what we will do tomorrow (Wednesday)."
"Tomorrow (Wednesday) we face a life without our routine, and without the place in Salt River that we have known all these years." - Staff Reporter.
