Govt must rescue farm workers in SA

A trade union for farm workers in South Africa, where thousands of our fellow countrymen are employed, revealed that “farm worker communities are the forgotten segment of our society, hidden away and ignored in our rural areas, where exploitation is rife.
“Many employer-employee relationships on farms are still paternalistic, where the farmer appears to see the workers as subjects and property. Trade unions have difficulty accessing the workers. On those farms where we have recognition agreements, farmers often victimise our members and even offer farm worker leaders and shop stewards bribes to resign from the union. The struggle for decent lives and decent work for farm working communities is a long and arduous fight by small, independent, under-resourced trade unions in the agriculture sector,” said Henriëtte Abrahams, who is General Secretary of Sikhula Sonke Farm Workers Union, in an online article.
The article gave an insight into the barbaric way of life that farm workers are subjected to across the Limpopo, and what draws our attention to that anomaly is that there are Zimbabweans who are subjected to such inhumane conditions by mostly white farmers who perhaps have racist tendencies in their blood.
The article said farmers were refusing to pay workers through the bank, and choosing to pay them using envelopes where in some cases, large amounts of monies are deducted without even consulting the concerned workers for various “debts”,  derived from groceries that include alcohol.
“A piece of paper and plastic bank bag is not in compliance with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and Sectoral Determination Act (13) on farm workers as it makes no reference to hours and overtime worked, deductions and so forth. The worker believes the farmer is overcharging his workers for the products they are forced to buy from him. Even more shockingly, the farmer beats and physically assaults his workers. He also operates a tot system and pays male workers with alcohol for overtime or weekend work.”
We wonder why employers are allowed to get away with murder, paying people who toil all day long with alcohol (tot system), something which is not only abusive but also dangerous to workers’ health and social life.
Our sister paper, Chronicle reported last week that about 90 Zimbabweans, employed at a farm in South Africa, were stranded and living in a police station after they were summarily dismissed from employment by a white farmer, identified as T J Van der Walt. The article said the workers were fired and evicted from where they were staying for demanding payment for overtime. The workers were about 300, and some have sought employment elsewhere while others have come back home, with others now living at a makeshift camp. Workers also revealed that their leaders were allegedly kidnapped and assaulted by their employer, who appears to be treating other people like animals.
While we appreciate that the police and Department of Home Affairs in South Africa ordered the farmer to pay workers their dues before they depart, we note that the issue has been dragging for long since August, and its high time it was handled at senior level.
We can not continue to have a situation where about 90 people are crammed at a make shift camp, living on hand-outs from well wishers, yet they are owed money by some wealthy commercial farmer who for reasons better known to himself, decides to ignore their genuine calls, and also orders from the police and Home Affairs officials.
We believe Zimbabwe’s Consul General Batiraishe Mukonoweshuro should engage South African authorities so that our fellow countrymen can get what is due to them, and they get their freedom which they deserve, like everybody else.
The fact that they are foreigners in South Africa does not justify the ill-treatment that they are going through. This is certainly not the Africa that our liberation heroes fought for across the continent.