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Cape Town - A wage strike by 33 000 Western Cape clothing workers, due to start on Tuesday, has been averted by a multi-million rand settlement agreement, the Congress of SA Trade Unions announced on Monday.
The federation said more than 90% of the workers had voted in favour of the strike.
The settlement followed last-minute negotiations between the Southern Africa Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) and the employers' Cape Clothing Association.
Sactwu is a Cosatu affiliate, and the largest union in the Western Cape.
Cosatu said the agreement provided for a 6.47%increase in labour cost, and would inject about R46 million rand extra cash into the Western Cape economy over the next ten months.
The agreement contained a number of "firsts", including consensus on setting up a national bargaining council for the clothing industry by March 31 next year.
It established an industry protection fund, to be used for initiatives in the union's Save Jobs Campaign, such as combating illegal imports. Employers would pay R430 000 into this fund this year.
It also confronted the challenge of productivity, by introducing a trial project on production-linked incentives.
Wage negotiations covering clothing workers in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape have also been settled.
However, the union will proceed with strike action by 6 000 clothing workers in Johannesburg from Tuesday, as wage negotiations covering these workers had not yielded an agreement.