State not doing enough for farm workers – report

WRITER DAMNING findings have been made against the state for not intervening enough to improve the livelihoods of farm workers since 1994, a report released by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has found.

The cause of the state’s failure was concluded to be because it did not appreciate that the fortunes of workers and producers were interlinked.

The study, which was initiated by current ANC parliamentary chief whip, Stone Sizane when he was chairman of the portfolio committee on Rural Development and Land Affairs, is the most comprehensive of its kind to date, encompassing eight provinces. He and others had sought to make available fresh data in order to manage the future of the agriculture sector.

The report also makes serious findings against the state for not supporting farmers, an act which has reduced their ability to resist “pressure in the value chain”.

Because of this, hundreds of farm workers have lost their jobs as struggling employers battle to stay afloat in a business environment heavily influenced by external factors.

“Consider exempting exporting producers from the competition act to allow them to collectively set floor prices that would incorporate a living wage for farm workers,” reads one of the key recommendations made in the 252-page report.

Farm workers and employers also wanted government to urgently address the critical issue of housing which has stalked farm workers for years.

Some have been subjected to illegal evictions and went on to get no reprieve from police officials who did not consider the act a crime, as the study found.

The report encouraged stakeholders in the sector to either collectively or individually pursue the housing issue and many other with the government.

Some of the recommendations included an appeal to “increase the housing budget of rural municipalities to accommodate housing for seasonal farm workers and improve public transport in rural areas to decrease the isolation of on-farm workers”.

The report also expressed a frustration with government policy’s failure to respond to the complexity of diverse farm workers who live in different settings.

While government was looked at for most of the solutions to the challenges faced by the sector, workers were also getting a raw deal from their employers. Some of the interviewed workers complained of a variety of problems with their on-farm housing.

“Not many workers interviewed had access to flush toilets and families often had to share either bathrooms and/or toilets with neighbours . . . other common complaints related to housing were dampness, mouldiness, leaking ceilings or walls (25 percent of interviewees) and broken doors, read the study.”

Migrant workers were also discussed in the document, raising concern about some of the misperceptions about them.

These included views which had apparently led to tensions in the rural town of Boland, where residents believed migrants were paid less than locals, and were taking away their jobs.

Even more worrying though, were the views of some producers from the Western Cape who said they preferred employing workers from Lesotho and Zimbabwe because “they were more willing to work and more reliable than locals who ‘could fall back on social grants’ and ‘were unreliable’ “.

However the researchers concluded that this was not the predominant view as the majority of farm workers were still South Africans.

The report has been submitted to several government departments which have a direct role to play in improving working and living conditions of farm workers.