Welcome to SACTWU

Sactwu is the biggest union in the clothing, textile and leather industry in South Africa, with more than 85 000 members. This allows Sactwu to represent members more effectively. We negotiate wages for the vast majority of workers in the clothing, textile and leather industry, and our agreements cover more than 100 000 workers.

We have an organisational capacity to take up worker problems, with over 50 organisers employed country wide, and 40 other support staff. We build worker leadership on the shop floor, with 1 800 shop stewards, all of who are elected every three years by secret ballot by union members. We employ  four full-time officials to train shop stewards.

We have a qualified research team that studies economic problems in the industry, and help to develop solutions on issues such as imports, exports, the buy local campaign, and ways to save factories from closing.

We run big campaigns to save jobs, and have led the call to set up a ‘buy South Africa campaign’, and we enter into agreements with big companies to support the local industry.

We provide numerous personal benefits for members. These include automatic funeral cover, amongst other things.

We also have programmes which benefit our members and their families, such as a bursary scheme that pays for the children of our members to complete higher education diplomas and degrees. To date our bursary fund has paid out more than R60 000

We defend workers against unfair dismissals at the factory level, at the CCMA, in the Bargaining Council and in the Labour Court. Every year we take up at least 250 cases at the CCMA and we spend almost R1 million in Labour Court cases.

We run the continents largest HIV Aids union support program, with almost 30 000 members having undergone our VCT facility in 2009 alone.

We have a student wing, a retirees unit and a Retrenchment unit.

We have 20 offices spread throughout South Africa, with a Head Office in Cape Town.

We provide a home for workers, uniting people who speak Afrikaans, Zulu, Sotho, English, Xhosa, Tswana and every other local language. We bring together Christians, Muslims, Hindus and every other religion.

We are affiliated to the Brussels based International Textile, Garment, Leather, and Footwear Federation (ITGLWF)

We join together with all other industries to form Cosatu - the powerful voice of South Africa’s workers.