Ten men who walked 100m to Cape Town to escape a Piketberg farmer they were tricked into working for say that the man they call Baas Cowboy" made them work six-and-a-half days a week in shifts of up to 15 hours, and paid them R5 a day. The men, who said they were beaten regularly on the farm, said they had fled late at night for fear of being spotted by patrolling foremen who would tell the farmer, GJ Carstens.
Carstens, of Klipheuwel farm, earned the nickname "Baas Cowboy" from his style of labour relations. He has denied the allegations, saying the men were "just trouble-makers seeking publicity". He said, for example, that he did not beat his workers: "It's bad to beat them when they cost so much — they just leave." The men arrived in Cape Town last Wednesday after a three-day 'walk and just a month after being recruited in impoverished Botshabelo, a resettlement area 55km east of Bloemfontein and some 1 000km from Piketberg. They said Carstens offered daily wages of R8,50 for labourers, R12,50 for tractor drivers and R15 truck drivers. Instead they harvested potatoes and onions for R5 a day, six-and-a- half days a week, and were "paid" for overtime in tots of wine.
Carstens said this week the men had threatened his -other workers. He dismissed all their allegations which include hiring under false pretenses and refusal to return their ID books they surrendered on recruitment. He insisted they were free to leave the farm at any time. The 10 men were recruited on April 5 at a Botshabelo general store owned by the township mayor, Sam Chaka.
Carstens said Chaka regularly arranged his recruitment drives. The 10 men said they travelled, packed into four trucks with about 100 others, for 28 hours before arriving on Klipheuwel farm. They said theywere warned against leaving and were housed in a compound apart from other workers "so that we wouldn't get to hear farm's story", said Shadrack Maruping, who spoke on the men's behalf. Of their weekly wages, R2,40 was docked for food – mealie-meal, black sugared coffee for breakfast and mealie meal with unpeeled potatoes for lunch and dinner, and R3,60 for wine. He said they rose at 5am, started work at 6am and sometimes worked until 9pm at night.
Maruping said when they asked to be taken home or to get their ID books so they could leave, Carstens demanded R40. "He told us he would take us home in December." Some workers had already deserted when Maruping and the others decided to leave. "That Saturday the farmer said he had heard of this running away business and he gave us each only R5, saying he would give us the rest of our wages the next week." They left the farm after dark and walked to Piketberg police station. "Two constables wanted to help us with our case but a sergeant came and when he heard we were from Baas Cowboy's he said we must go back or phone and ask him to bring our ID books," Maruping said.
The men then set off for Cape Town, sleeping on the roadside for two nights before arriving in the out-lying suburb of Kraaifontein on Tuesday. There they pooled their "last few cents" and caught a train. Too many to hitch rides, they had walked "until we could walk no more", Maruping said. At Cape Town station's charge office police referred them to SAP headquarters several blocks away. They in turn told them to go to police in Langa, outside Cape Town. In the township they were allowed to stay over for the night and referred "to the "Bantu Administration Board" offices nearby. A woman there referred them to the Transport and General Workers' Union, which runs an aid service for an organised workers. Two caught a taxi, to the union' s Athlone offices.
Carstens claimed the men had threatened his workers with burning their houses and 'necklacing' if they did not stop work. "One of them saw on TV the minimum wage for farmworkers should be R 10 a day but I got a man from the cooperative to explain they were earning more than that with food and housing," he said. If workers were unhappy they had only to come to him. He held their books, but only for "safekeeping" and would return them on request. They were free to move about, although foremen oversaw every compound. His instructions were there should be no beatings, but sometimes "differences" between workers and foremen were settled in the "traditional" way. If a worker-transgressed his pay was docked for a week. Workers' meals were prepared by a qualified cook "with hotel experience" for which they paid 40 cents a day. The men have taken legal advice. However, in South protection of labour legislation – and civil actions are prohibitively expensive.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
