Farmers on South Africa’s northern border are dispossessing their South African workers and trucking in Zimbabweans, who are willing to work for R5 a day. Ann Eveleth reports
Maswiri Boerdery director Andries Fourie is the quintessential old-style farmer. Khaki- clad and drunk with the power he exerts over the 400 South African farmworkers he dismissed last year and about 500 Zimbabwean farmworkers he trucked across the border to replace them, Fourie brooks no opposition.
He doesn’t believe the 900 black people living on “his” Northern Province farm in Tshipise – a stone’s throw from the Beit Bridge border post with Zimbabwe – have the right to speak to outsiders without his permission.
He had never heard of the European Union before this week. And he doesn’t believe his workers have the right to join a union to press for increases to their R335 monthly wage.
“I’m not answering any of your questions. You are going to answer my questions,” he declared as he tried to force an EU-led delegation, accompanied by the Mail & Guardian, to leave the farm during a meeting with his sacked workers on Monday.
Fourie is embroiled in a Labour Court battle with the workers he dismissed last year after they joined the Trade Union of South African Authority (TUSAA)in a bid to improve their working and living conditions.
He was also criticised this week by the Human Rights Commission for the “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” meted out with his knowledge to a former worker.
This week Fourie detained representatives of the EU Foundation for Human Rights, the National Land Committee (NLC), the Nkuzi Development Association and the M&G after a visit to the produce sheds where he houses his Zimbabwean workforce in squalid conditions.
“We pick oranges in the fields from 6am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday,” says Bangai Shengiwa, a 25-year-old woman who got a job at the border post last March by paying about R5 to a border official for a permit. “People come from as far away as Harare to get jobs at the border. The farmer brings you across in his truck the first time, but after that you have to pay your own way back,” she adds.
Shengiwa lives in a filthy 4m2 cement shed with 19 other women who, like her, left their families behind in Zimbabwe to search for a better life in South Africa. She is embarrassed to open the tiny blackened pot on a tiny twig fire in front of her room. “I don’t want you to see how badly we are living,” she says. The pot is less than half- full with the mopane worms the workers collect for food.
“Most of the time we only have funa [a thin soup] and cabbage. The last time I had meat was in Zimbabwe,” adds Shengiwa.
Some of the men, like Leonard Tachie (47), live in crowded cement rooms like Shengiwe’s. But most sleep in the dirt that lines the floor of the two aluminium sheds once used to store mielies and other produce. Four big pots cook the porridge they will eat for days. “You get another R45 a month for food if you don’t eat the farm food,” says Tachie.
“People volunteer for this work when the agent comes to Zimbabwe because they say there are good wages of R500 a month and good accommodation. Only when you arrive here things are very different,” he adds.
Tachie says fights are common between his fellow Zimbabwean workers and the South African workers that used to do their jobs. The two groups live on separate parts of Fourie’s extensive farm. Shengiwa says she knows the South Africans used to work there, but explains, “We came here for the jobs because we are very poor.”
Back on the other side of the farm, where the sacked South African workers await the outcome of their Labour Court application and a land restitution claim for a large part of the farm where some families have lived for generations, the tempers are rising against the Zimbabweans.
“The Zimbabweans are taking our jobs and we should fight. They have left their country and come here, so we don’t feel any pity for them,” says Thomas Tobo (26).
“They better get these jobs while the South Africans are working. We voted for this government, but they only gave rights to the Zimbabweans, not to us,” says another man.
Nkuzi Development Association fieldworker Shirami Shirinda says most farms in the Tshipise/Messina district use Zimbabwean farmworkers.
A Human Rights Commission report on alleged violations of farmworkers’ rights in the district released this week estimates that at least 45% of Messina’s mainly black population of 27 000 is unemployed. The only work in the area is found on the large citrus and tomato farms owned mainly by white farmers.
But the Zimbabweans are not illegal immigrants. They proudly display their work permits, mostly for six months and often renewed. A sticker on the permits bears the name of a Messina labour broker, Bertus Schutte.
Northern Province home affairs regional director Victor Mabunda says the permits are issued in terms of a long-standing agreement between the governments of South Africa and Zimbabwe. “It might happen that some of our officials are abusing their power [by rubber- stamping applications], and if we know of cases like that we will investigate. But if there is an agreement, we cannot change the policy,” he said.
Nobody seems to have a copy of this agreement, but Beit Bridge immigration officer Erika Nuller says between 2 000 and 3 000 Zimbabwean farmworkers are granted visas each month on this basis.
The Agricultural Employers Organisation (AEO)says the agreement – forged by the apartheid regime – was due to end last year, but it managed to convince the government to extend it to January 31 and are now negotiating for a further extension. Many of the current workers at Maswiri are legal until April.
The AEO says the farmers need the agreement because “South African workers do not want to work”.
Immigration seems to accept this argument. Although Nuller says there are no efforts made to ensure local labour cannot fill the jobs, she explains that “we all know the farmers say the South African workers don’t want to work. Especially at places like Messina, people ask for exorbitant amounts just to pick tomatoes,” she says.
But Nkuzi Development Association policy co- ordinator Edward Lahiff says South African workers simply want a decent wage. “The farmers are pitching their wages so low – between R5 and R9 a day – because they know they can get Zimbabwean labour. Such a wage only came about with the large pool of unemployed labour that this agreement made available. It is not a market wage. These farmers are producing oranges for export.
“Now that South African workers have rights, the farmers are saying `We want to keep the old system by using a super-exploited labour pool from Zimbabwe,'” adds Lahiff.
Azwitamisi Kwinda (40) is adamant that Fourie fired her and her colleagues “because this farmer doesn’t like the unions. We wanted the union because life was difficult on the farm and because now the law is allowing people to join unions. He formed another union and told us to join that one. Some people joined because it only cost R5, but the rest of us stayed with TUSAA. Then he made a list of the people from TUSAA and said we are too dark so we must be Zimbabwean. He called the police and 11 of us were arrested,” she says.
Kwinda – the appointed representative of the group – says the unionised workers tried to discuss this with Fourie for a week. “Fourie refused to speak to us. Then he promised to give us R50 and R100 later. He paid us R50 one month and we never saw it again.”
The workers went on strike and Fourie dismissed them. Then he marked their houses for eviction, but Nkuzi averted this plan by informing him of the Extension of Security of Tenure Act. But the workers have had no money for almost a year.
“I started working when I was not even able to carry five litres of water, packing boxes for oranges,” says Kwinda. “Our average salary was R335 per month and sometimes he would only pay after six weeks. We worked from 7am to 5pm Monday to Saturday. Now we have nothing,” she adds.
Northern Province Department of Labour director Pinky Mayesela says the province had not been informed of the agreement that apparently allowed Fourie to replace Kwinda and her colleagues. Most foreign work permits are vetted with the department, but this has not happened in this case.
“We have a very high rate of unemployment in the Northern Province and we would prefer to give preference to unemployed South Africans. If there is an agreement, maybe the balance can be struck on a quota system until that agreement runs out. But we have plenty of internal farm labour here.
“We have queues and queues of people looking for work. Not only must they be employed, but they must work under decent conditions in terms of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act,” adds Mayesela.
The visit to the Maswiri Boerdery was sponsored by the European Union Foundation for Human Rights as part of a R2-million project conducted by the NLC, the Legal Resources Centre and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies to implement the 1997 Extension of Security of Tenure Act
ENDS