Labour
The Big Garment Dupe: 'Made in South Africa'
by Yajiv Haripersad and Michael Kinville
A shopping expedition to any of South Africa's numerous retail clothing chains would easily reveal both local and global trends in fashion, marketing and manufacturing
''Conscious consumers'' who wish to support South African designers and manufacturers keep an eye on the wash care labels of garments in local retail stores with the hope of finding out whether a garment is made in South Africa or not. With international trends and products permeating the local market, purchasing a garment from a local retailer is perceived to be at the very end of the value chain, and it is only at this place that an ordinary consumer can see where the garment was made. The look of the wash care label can be very deceiving, since in most cases the words ''Made in South Africa'' may not actually mean that the entire garment was produced within South Africa's borders utilizing local labour. In some cases the words ''Made in South Africa from imported materials'' can prove to be rather inconsequential and misleading.
According to a local award-winning designer, in order to be competitive, designers are forced to abandon creative local projects and look to other places in the world (often via the Internet) for designs that can be inexpensively mass-produced. It is the buyer who ultimately determines which designs are the good sellers as they have adequate information on consumer demand. South African designers, more often than not, have to sacrifice uniqueness of design for mass sale and in so doing surrender the localness from garments designed in South Africa. Even designs are not entirely ''Made in South Africa''.
In other cases, comparatively inexpensive imported clothing and materials exert a downward pressure on local manufacturing costs resulting in a domestic race to the bottom with regards to wages and employment securities. That said, fieldwork conducted in Durban's central business district (CBD) led to the following findings: firstly, the ''Made in South Africa'' label is often true only for the assembly (''cut, measure and trim'') of garments and that many of the materials (chiefly cotton) used to produce these garments are imported; secondly, the subcontractors which assemble the ''Made in South Africa'' garments circumvent both trade unions and labour legislation in order to keep production costs down. Both findings are part and parcel of a broader struggle to cope with the influx of inexpensive imports into the South African marketplace.
Multi-nationals target our homebased initiatives
The garments that are supposedly designed by South Africans are usually manufactured in various cut, measure and trim (CMT) factories around South Africa. These locations are where most of the corruption and half-truths are to be found. A home-based factory in Phoenix had the highest levels of what were determined to be South African elements. At the time of study, the operation was comprised of South African nationals producing uniforms for a multi-national company that markets and distributes medical apparel for healthcare professionals. According to the owner, the materials were locally produced. So, here we have a home-based operation producing for a multi-national company that had the resources to manufacture in formal factories with rigid employment structures, but instead opted to subcontract projects to the lowest bidders. At other times, products made in this home-based factory were sold by lower-end retailers, with local designers providing the necessary designs.
The second factory under study was in the Durban CBD and, similar to the Phoenix home-based operation, was managed and owned by a South African woman. She told stories of how ruthless South African retailers could be; how they manipulate factory owners by forcing them to cut production prices and how they tended to play factories against each other in their search for the lowest price. This was her rationale for not accepting contracts from the big retail chains, and for deciding instead to deal with smaller retailers and informal traders. This operation employed fifty workers who were posited at various parts of the production line. There was a small percentage of people working here from neighbouring African countries. Most of the textiles used in the production were imported from abroad. Fabric was sourced from China, while other items such as buttons and plastics were imported from Taiwan. Wash-care labels were not stitched onto garments here; rather the owner informed us that the buyer would re-brand the goods and stitch wash-care labels. The target market for products from this operation consisted of lower-end retail stores and street traders, but an independent intermediary (i.e. middle man) handled all the bargaining, sales and logistical matters.
A middle-aged Bangladeshi man owned and managed the third operation, and not unlike the first operation, he employed a diverse set of workers. South Africans, other African nationals, Pakistani and Bangladeshi labour manned the shop floor.
Boxes and huge cartons with labels marked 'Made in China' lay scattered across the shop floor beside heaps of garments without any wash-care tags, while mostly foreign, unorganised workers stitched these labels onto the garments. The irony was startling.
Further astounding discoveries were made in the fourth factory under study. This operation was more formal than the rest. It had a clocking system that recorded the working hours of employees, as well as well-lit and sufficiently ventilated rooms. The work space was well organized and machinery was of a high quality. The employees here seemed happier than any of the other operations. Twenty-three workers formed the labour complement and the line manager proved that they had contracts of employment but were not employed on a full-time, permanent basis. Even though this operation seemed to be better organised, it was not an orthodox clothing factory. Sample garments arrived here from much bigger factories, and this operation merely replicated these designs. Unlike the previous factories under study, these sample garments were coming in from factories that contracted their garments to South Africa's leading retail chains. In addition, at the time of this study, this operation was producing ladies' garments for two of South Africa's leading retailers. The bigger factories simply outsourced work to these smaller operations. Also, while wash-care labels were not yet stitched onto the garments made in this operation, these garments were made from textiles and buttons imported from China.
Switching Labels; Subverting Intent
The retail store under study revealed that very few garments carried wash care labels that read: ''Made in South Africa'', or ''Made in South Africa from imported materials''; instead, the majority of the wash care labels read: ''Made in China'', ''Made in India'' or ''Made in Mauritius''.
The label may say one thing but a myriad of factors may subvert the authenticity of the statement. Designs are not purely South African, only one factory used textile from South Africa, neither is the labour force nor ownership purely South African.
So, is this really ''Made in South Africa''?
Our campaign to create an awareness of homemade initiatives and to proudly market South African products becomes distorted and problematic when we consider the findings in this study.
Our recommendation for dealing with the issues outlined here, is to promote conscientious consumerism by means of reading beyond the brand names and wash-care labels. Buying clothing with the ''Made in South Africa'' label has the potential to help resurrect an industry which once provided workers with full time formal employment - yet at the same time, it is crucial to consider that ''Made in South Africa'' - is not an end in and of itself. Instead, it is an invitation for us as consumers to rediscover and reshape the realities facing the labour force.
Yajiv Haripersad and Michael Kinville are MA students (IOLS/GSP). This paper is the result of research performed on the clothing manufacturing sector and clothing retail sector in and around the Durban central business district (CBD).
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