Hair today, gone tomorrow
Hairdressers, many on brink of closure, gear up for court battle
A R250bn industry in tatters, with at least 600 of those surveyed entirely reliant on food parcels — that is the bleak picture painted in court papers as the hairdressing industry prepares for its urgent court battle today.
The almost one-million people reliant on the industry want the government’s decision to only let them trade during level one of the lockdown provisionally overturned by a judge.
They fear that if they continue to sit at home without an income for much longer, they will become permanently destitute.
In Port Elizabeth, dozens of salon owners say they can no longer afford their rent and that it is costing them more at this point simply to keep their doors open. Many have resorted to sneaking clients into their homes to dye, cut or colour hair in a desperate attempt to earn enough money to pay their bills.
“We haven’t earned any money since the lockdown was announced, but the schools continue to demand their fees and my landlord wants his rent,” Blessing Hair Salon owner Linda Sallo said.
The application, with the minister of health and the national executive of SA cited as respondents, has been set down for argument today.
Though lawyers for health minister Zweli Mkhize had indicated he would oppose the matter, no responding papers had been filed by late yesterday.
Advocate Carlo Viljoen said the application represented about 90,000 registered hairdressers and a further 120,000 unregistered hairdressers in an industry which injected R250bn into the SA economy each year.
Yet as from May 1, when alert level four of the lockdown was imposed, the livelihood of these individuals had come to a screeching halt.
Viljoen, who deals mostly with human rights issues, is handling the matter pro bono.
“There are about one-million people dependent on this industry for their livelihoods,” he said.
Viljoen said in an affidavit that most hairdressers lived from hand-to-mouth and few, if any, were able to put away any significant savings.
“A vast majority of hairdressers are single parents who have to support their children.
“The prohibition on their services has arbitrarily and without warning cut them off from earning a livelihood not only for themselves, but also for those dependent on them,” he said.
Sallo, 37, whose salon is in Govan Mbeki Avenue, said while she had managed to buy enough food for her family with her modest savings, it was quickly running out.
“The school bills continue to come, even though they aren’t teaching my children.
“I am not able to pay [the school fees] and I am not able to pay my rent.
“Soon the food will run out too,” she said.
Andrea Barendse, owner of Ultimate Stylists, which has branches at the Walmer Park and Baywest shopping centres, said if the bar on trading continued for much longer, she might have to permanently close down one of them.
“I am single. I don’t have a partner to rely on for an income.
“It is just me,” she said. While Ultimate Stylists was now permitted to sell hair-care products for home use, Barendse, 60, said this was not nearly enough money to cover
her overheads. She was one of the lucky few with enough of a reserve to get her through the lockdown so far, but said many of her employees were suffering because they had not yet received their money from the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF).
She was accordingly trying to help as much as possible, but her pockets were only so deep.
“I know of people who have sold their washbasins [in their salons] to put food on the table and at least two others who have gone from doing fairly well for themselves to having to rely on food parcels,” Barendse said of her hairdressing colleagues.
Viljoen said many people in the hair industry had by now lost all access to any kind of money to survive professionally after the lockdown.
“They are unable to pay their rent or meet their financial commitments and, most urgent of all, they are running dangerously low on the ability to feed themselves and their dependants,” he said.
Mitigating for the matter to be dealt with on an urgent basis and not in the normal time frames of the court, Viljoen said the country was faced with the imminent impoverishment of a million skilled, taxpaying and contributing members of society.
He cited a string of precautionary measures salons would implement to reduce the risk of infection should they be allowed to trade.
“Then, of course, there is the risk of people, acting out of desperation, starting to operate in illegal underground operations, which will bring in a huge new dimension of risk and burden not only on the industry but on the community itself.”
A Newton Park salon owner, 34, who asked not to be named, said she had resorted to trading illegally from home because her husband’s salary alone could not sustain the family.
The woman said the industry was extremely competitive and she had seen hairdressers reporting one another for doing hair during the lockdown.
“I need to do what I need to do to feed and clothe my family, and help keep a roof over our heads,” she said.
“But I can only do a few clients each week, so it is not even enough to cover my bills and once we are able to trade, I fear what my debt repayments are going to be.
“If I was not doing hair illegally, my salon would have been closed by now.”
A salon owner in Central said he had resorted to selling his wine collection so that he could feed his dogs.
Viljoen said there was also a psychological need in the community for hairdressers, who acted as makeshift counsellors for many clients.
Germany, France and Spain reportedly allowed hairdressers to operate during the lockdown without any indication of higher risks being encountered.
“South Africans are mature people who are able to say for themselves and I respectfully submit that measures based on individuals taking responsibility would be much more accommodating to the wellbeing and best interest of society as a whole — rather than imposing on them a draconian imprisonment that is exposing them to financial doom,” he said.
“The public has a prima facie right to bodily and psychological integrity, which includes the right to make decisions concerning control over their body, which includes the choice whether they want to take the risk of exposure when interacting with another person.”