Son works alongside frail mother

KHAYALETHU Khwazayo often pleads with factory manager Fanzi Weng to work extra shifts on top of the nine hours he already puts in every day.

This is so that the manager will give Khayalethu’s frail mother a break.

Khayalethu, 23, works with his mother, Vatiswa Khwazayo, 51, assembling beds at the Cai Yun Furniture factory in East London, Eastern Cape.

“It’s hard work [and] painful watching my mother having to suffer. I’m almost half my mother’s age and I can hardly manage,” he said.

An average day for the mother and son involves sharing a bowl of soft porridge, starting work at 9am, taking a 15-minute lunch break at 10am and sharing dry bread and warm tea, then working nonstop until 5pm. They have to complete about 20 beds before they can each get paid their R50 for the day.

Vatiswa keeps water in a bottle under the beer crate she sits on in the factory.

“The sawdust and heat can be unbearable,” she said.

Some days are bearable for the middle-aged woman, but others she forgets as quickly as possible. “I can’t remember the last time I went to sleep without complaining of an aching body,” she said.

Khayalethu shares a cramped truck container with three roommates, and Vatiswa lives in a makeshift room with three other women. The accommodation is free. The Khwazayos are allowed half a day off every Saturday. They do not get holidays or paid sick leave.

Vatiswa said she was relieved that their working conditions had been exposed.

“[Khayalethu] would have never left to search for another job,” she said.

Yesterday, after the provincial department of labour closed down the factory, Vatiswa and her son returned to their rural home in Butterworth, their first visit in more than a year.