For ten years, the National Bargaining Council for the Clothing Manufacturing Industry has been used by the main union in the sector and some of the industry’s more capital-intensive firms to impose higher labour costs on labour-intensive employers in Newcastle, in KwaZulu-Natal. The events described and analysed in a new CDE Focus by two UCT-based economists show how, under the guise of promoting ‘decent work’, an alliance of insiders can drive a process of structural adjustment that undermines labour-intensive employment, in the process, exporting South African jobs to lower-wage countries such as Lesotho and China.