The Newcastle Chinese Chamber of Commerce (NCCC), an organization responsible for many South African jobs, is expecting an unusual delivery this month: a broken brick.

According to a forum post on Politicsweb by the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (SACTWU), the broken brick represents employers who break down, not build, decent work in the clothing industry. The brick is the trophy piece for the SACTWU’s Worst Employer Award, which they bestowed upon the NCCC during their 11th National Congress on Sept. 26.

SACTWU accuses NCCC of paying machinists between 180 and 280 South African Rands a week, a fraction of the legal minimum wage, 479.10 Rands a week. Trade unions like SACTWU are pressuring organizations like NCCC to pay higher wages and provide employees with better working conditions.

The NCCC represents a small portion of the 358 clothing companies being cited as paying below minimum wage by the Bargaining Council. SACTWU plans to criminally prosecute employers that do not comply with the Bargaining Council’s proposed wage structure according to Business Report. This could result in closure or relocation of several businesses, resulting in the loss of many jobs for South Africa.

“In their interest in fair trade they have turned a blind eye to the consequences,” said Jeremy Magruder, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at University of California, Berkeley, in a telephone interview with The Guilfordian.

Clothing manufacturers in Newcastle, South Africa, are deciding to close shop rather than comply. Many Chinese factory owners say they must be allowed to pay lower wages to maintain business, according to The New York Times.

“If we want to keep our clothing industry, we need some kind of revolution,” said NCCC spokesman Alex Liu, according to Business Day.

According to The New York Times, upwards of 20,000 jobs are at risk because of the threat of clothing manufacturers closing down. Many South African workers depend on their less-than-substantial wages, preferring pay below the legal minimum to nothing at all. South Africa has held onto staggeringly high unemployment rates for over a decade.

“Sometimes what we earn is not enough, but at least we have been empowered and can manufacture our own clothes. If I had the means I could start my own business from the skills that I learned here,” said Tholakele Shabalala, a machinist at the Old Tailor Garments factory at Madadeni in Newcastle, according to Business Report.

In 2008, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reported an unemployment rate of more than 40 percent South Africans aged between 15-24 years. The New York Times reports that the number of unemployed blacks aged 15-34 now exceeds 50 percent, an unemployment rate that triples the white demographic minority.

The New York Times states that many analysts question President Jacob Zuma’s leadership because of the failure of the government to produce a working plan.

“The South African clothing sector has seen the closure of dozens of factories and the loss of thousands of jobs over the past few years,” said Liu via Politicsweb in a response to SACTWU’s awarding of Worst Employer Award.

“Can the union, the industry, the country, and South African people afford further losses because of the inflexibility of finding a solution around a marginal difference in wages?”

NCCC criticizes the unions for focusing on fair trade rather than job creation. “It’s a difficult decision to make,” said Magruder. “You’re trading the quality of life for those employed for the number of people that have jobs.”

The New York Times points to apartheid, a system of racial segregation introduced by the National Party government between 1948 and 1994, as being the source of disparity among employment rates. Many light industry manufacturing jobs are located on the outskirts of rural areas, keeping many black workers away from cities and restrained to the rural lands they were relocated to during apartheid. Apartheid led to poor education resources among blacks, creating many unskilled workers.

“Unskilled workers, especially women, are being taken advantage of, but the situation offers no other alternatives for them,” said Coates. According to The Economist, women in South Africa receive less than two-thirds of a man’s pay, despite making up nearly half of the labor force.

Magruder disagrees that the Chinese are exploiting workers that have been displaced and disadvantaged by apartheid.

“South Africa’s problem is that they can’t attract foreign employers,” said Magruder. “There’s too few foreign employers, not too many.”

Both Magruder and Coates say that creation of jobs is an important step for South Africa. SACTWU’s prosecution of companies paying below minimum wage could mean a step backwards for job creation, but SACTWU argues that allowing low wages is not a guarantee against job loss.

SACTWU cited a congress report stating that fifty-two percent of the 18,291 clothing sector jobs lost during the 2007-2010 period took place in areas where the wage rates were the lowest in the clothing industry.

According to Bloomsberg Businessweek, Zuma’s recent comments on the fiscal and monetary policy imply he remains focused on job creation while showing commitment to the paradigm South African worker’s unions and the South African Communist Party.

“We have to achieve higher levels of economic growth and have to ensure that such growth benefits all society, especially the poor,” said Zuma, according to Fin24.