Funeral Benefits and Retirement Fund

SACTWU provides funeral cover for members and dependents, to help meet the cost of funerals. In addition to the funeral benefit, we provide a retirement benefit for long-serving members.

SACTWU's Benefit Scheme is self-administered. This means that a portion of the union's subscriptions is put into a dedicated Trust Fund, from which we pay a range of benefits. It is one of few such schemes not administered by an outside insurance company.

Current benefits, as at July 2007:

Clothing, textiles, tanning, general goods and handbags and ‘other':
Member: R 4 000
Spouse:  R 2 000
Parents:  R 500
Children 0-6 years: R 500
Children 7-14 years: R 1 000
Children 15-25 years: R 2 000

Footwear:
Member: R15 000
Spouse:  R 8 600
Parents:  R 1 875
Children 0-6 years: R 1 875
Children 7-14 years: R 3 750
Children 15-25 years: R 8 600

The footwear benefit is funded from a levy of 1% of the basic wage paid by members of SAFLIA (the footwear employer body). This levy became applicable in July 2004 and the improvements to the footwear funeral fund were made shortly thereafter. This levy is not applicable to nonparty employers.

The retirement section of the fund pays out to members with long service who have retired.

he Funeral and Retirement Fund also administers a supplementary sick fund for members in the leather industry.