Farm workers in the Makana region work under similar harsh conditions to those recently criticised by a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on farming in the Western Cape. The report that was released last week was based on interviews with 260 farm labourers that revealed their unfair working and living conditions.
Farm workers in the Makana region work under similar harsh conditions to those recently criticised by a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on farming in the Western Cape. The report that was released last week was based on interviews with 260 farm labourers that revealed their unfair working and living conditions.
Many live in houses without electricity and running water, are paid below the minimum wage rate and work very long hours. The report also showed that no safety procedures are enforced by farmers regarding labourers working with pesticides and in other dangerous conditions.
Similar conditions have been reported in the Makana region where beef, dairy, crops and ostrich farming predominate. Grocotts’s Mail contacted the Bathurst Agricultural Research Station whose staff research farm production and labour issues (among others), and asked an official, Mhlangabezi Solontsi, for his assessment of the difficulties faced by local farm workers.
Solontsi, who is the research station’s farm manager, said that about half of all local farm workers live in the surrounding townships and travel to work by bakkies and trucks.
The rest live on the farms where they work. According to Solontsi, 20% live in houses put up by farmers that are well maintained with electricity and water.
However, he says that an estimated 30% live in shacks without electricity on the farms where they work.
“The living conditions of these people are below standard,” he said. He explained that labourers’ wages range between R65 and R160 per day. The problem, however, is that the majority of labourers are paid according to production and profit, meaning that they don't always earn a steady wage. Solontsi said that farms are not regularly visited by labour inspectors.
As a result: “safety measures vary from farmer to farmer,” because farm managers sometimes fail to enforce safety procedures. This in turn puts workers’ health at risk. Another concern raised by Solontsi is that Makana farm bosses do not allow their labourers to join or form a union.
According to Solontsi, farmers feel that if farm workers join unions they could go on strike with the result that production and profit could be seriously affected. Solontsi says that the workers’ complaints he hears tend to be “mostly about living conditions and wages”.
