Job Loss and Increased Casualisation for Women Workers in the Shoe Industry of South Africa

The studies were conducted in Kwazulu-Natal and Western Cape provinces of South Africa. which is considered as the major footwear production centers of the country. The KZN area produces approximately 60% of the footwear made in the country. The next largest producing area is the Western Cape followed by the Eastern Cape and Gauteng. There are approximately 120 footwear factories in the country employing between 10,000 and 12,000 workers (SAFLEC).

Pietermaritzburg in the KwaZulu Natal province in South Africa was known as the ‘Shoe City’ during the days of Apartheid. The city was at the centre of footwear production in the country and was followed in order of importance by the Western Cape Province. Shoe factories in these two provinces provided employment for tens of thousands of workers, mostly dominated by women. For decades, the footwear industry represented job security and means of earning a decent wage. With the advent of globalisation and trade liberalisation, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction.

With a change in South Africa’s political scenario, the majority ruled government quickened the pace of trade liberalization in the country, after achieving majority in 1994. Moving ahead of the Marrakech Agreement of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the country decided unilaterally to lower the tariff rates by substantial amounts in order to boost the trade prospects. The country’s Department of Trade and Industry argued that this would give the department a leeway to increase tariff rates if and when the industrial policy required it.

Such rampant reductions in import tariffs in South Africa led to subsequent increase in cheaper imports, mainly from Asia. Consequently, the domestic footwear manufacturing industries, which were once the lifeblood of towns like Pietermaritzburg, had to close down and send workers home.

According to the labour statistics from the South African Footwear and Leather Industries Association (SAFLIA), the number of employers in1994 when South Africa became a signatory of the Marrakech Agreement of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has been going down steadily.

There were 39 employers in the Western Cape in 1995, 25 in 1998, 23 in 2000 and 19 by 2001. Production of footwears also recorded a decline. From a national figure of 61.7 million pairs of footwear produced in 1989, the number reduced to 25.8 million pairs in 1999. Employment also decreased from 24,878 employees in 1995 to 15,742 employees in 2000. The hardest hit provinces being the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu Natal. (See table below).

Employment and production figures in the footwear industry of South Africa

^{Source: SAFLIA}

The research also found out that the normal working hours in the footwear factories have been extended in the process. The labour standards have been revised downwards to the extent that the differences between permanent and casual workers almost vanished. The companies, with a profit maximizing behaviour, implemented multi-skilled, multitasking processes and created a flexible workforce, capitalising on its advantages during both peak and off-peak periods of production, adopting the policies of ‘hire and fire’. Such policies also led to worsening situation for the women workers in a sense that it did away with every rights of the women workers.

The difference in the work profile for men and women in the industry was well defined prior to 1994. Women in footwear factories in South Africa used to work in the closing and preparation room, while men were involved in the cutting process where they earned higher salaries. Post liberalization, the form of production process adopted, facilitated this gendered division of labour. But this did not materialize into an upward harmonising of the exiting wage differentials between men and women. Women in these factories are now doing what was formerly men’s job but still earn less than the remuneration that men used to be paid in the pre-trade liberalization period. Casual or contract women workers, who are paid a lower wage than full-time workers, are also used in these processes.

A female worker, during the course of study reported, “I am doing a ‘man’s job’, I am working in the clicking room. The job was, for a very long time, reserved for men. However, I would not advise any young woman to do this job. The machines are very heavy and can be very damaging especially for woman who want to have children. I have always wanted to be a designer and a year ago I got that ‘opportunity’. The only problem is that my wage rate is still that of a machinist”.

In the footwear factories, workers are often not given prior notice of overtime. Yet most of them have to comply with such decisions. This is due to the high unemployment rate persisting as a result of factory closures and retrenchments, the reasons used to compel the workers to stay in their jobs regardless of the working conditions. On a daily basis, there are at least a hundred who queue at the factory gates in search of work. Those who queue include a large number of retrenched workers, predominantly women, of the very same factory or from other factories. Quite a number is reemployed as casuals for positions that were formerly designated as permanent. The situation of the desperate job seekers make workers less willing to protest against their harsh working conditions and the violation of their rights.

Despite the existence of two established trade unions in the South African footwear industry, complaints about sexual harassment and exploitation go uninvestigated and unpunished. The low profile, adopted by these unions in terms of workers’ rights, facilitates the situation where women’s right to safe working conditions is being dangerously compromised. There are regular complaints of ill-treatment of pregnant workers, untimely and unwarranted abortions for the same and absence of proper health-officers in the factories.

Women are also being subjected to aggression and verbal threats of being fired or replaced. The economic and financial conditions of the women workers are continuously used as a noose around their necks, especially in the case of women who are single mothers or sole breadwinners.
Such working conditions and insecurities for women workers in the footwear industries have manifested in the inability of women workers to fulfill their unpaid reproductive roles in the care economy.

In this whole new arrangement, places like Pietermaritzburg experienced a restructuring of the entire setup of the footwear industry in the likes of the other developing countries in South and South-East Asia. The shoe factories began operating by outsourcing certain processes to the informal sector thus aggravating the problems of informalization of the economy as a result of liberalisation.

Such ‘putting out’ of factory work has also had its impact on the women workers, creating new opportunities for some and retrenchment for the others. Many women who were in formal employment earlier, found their way back to the shoe industry after retrenchments by engaging themselves in the informal sector.

Although the process of globalisation is understood by some women as presenting them with employment opportunities that they otherwise would not have had, there are vast discrepancies between the quality of the jobs in the informal sector and those lost in the formal sector. The remunerations are far less, and the abundance of female labour keep the wages lower. There is greater job insecurity and absolutely no non-wage benefits for the women workers in the informal shoe industry in South Africa.

The irony, however, is that, in spite of the price women have been made to pay, it is still not sufficient to save the industry. It has not stopped factory closures; it has not saved jobs; it has not prevented the adoption of lean production or restructuring of the labour process. Instead, there has been flexibilisation of the workforce, outsourcing and causalisation, and an ever-increasing informal shoe industry. This has been accompanied by an increase in imports and a decrease in quantity of footwear produced domestically.

[Source: Based on a study conducted by Gender and Economic reforms in Africa (GERA) in 2002, findings sourced from www.twnafrica.org/gera.asp and statistics from South African Footwear and Leather Industries Association (SAFLIA) and South African Footwear and Leather Export Council (SAFLEC).]