Farm Worker Sector Woes Highlighted in Report Released by UKZN

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Negative impacts from the labour unrest in 2012 and the minimum wage implementation in 2013 were still being felt in the agricultural sector, according to a report recently released by UKZN.

The report, conducted for the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on the living and working conditions of farm workers in South Africa, was released by the Agricultural Policy Research Unit (APRU) in UKZN’s School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences (SAEES).

The study was conducted by four South African universities under the guidance of Ms Margaret Visser of the Labour and Enterprise Policy Research Group (LEP) at the Institute of Development and Labour Law at the University of Cape Town, and Dr Stuart Ferrer, Director of the APRU.

Their work was monitored by an oversight committee which included government officials and representatives from community, worker and employer organisations.

Following incidents of unrest in the farm workers’ sector and consequently increased coverage of living and working conditions in the sector, the ILO sought to address, through this study, controversial and sometimes polarising issues and provide an updated perspective to allow broader understanding of some of the drivers of labour conflict to inform the management of the future landscape of agriculture in South Africa.

Research conducted by the team revealed that a number of incidents in the agricultural sector had negatively impacted on the living and working conditions of agricultural workers, most notably violent farm worker protests in 2012 and the 52% minimum wage hike implemented in 2013.

According to the report, responses by farmers to these events were, largely, to reduce permanent employment, cut working hours, move workers off farms and charge for non-wage benefits like housing. This was also a result of increased financial pressure on farms due to market deregulation, reduced trade tariff protection and the dominance of big international retailers.

The study found that with employers increasingly using casual labour, more workers now lived off-farm in informal settlements with public services struggling under the weight of the increased population. This led to other consequences such as the lack of sanitation infrastructure, which in turn impacted agriculture with raw sewage contamination water sources.

Visser and Ferrer undertook a desk review of existing laws and literature and then proceeded to do field research in eight provinces.

The study found a fairly high rate of compliance in farm workers being granted key rights and minimum wages, more so in industries where labour is internalised.

Key areas that need to be improved were identified, for example the neglect of granting of leave to seasonal workers who are continuously employed by the same employer and the requirement for farm workers to provide medical certificates on the first day of sick leave.

Highlighted in the study was the stalemate in which the industry and workers are faced with the inability of farmers to meet increased legislated minimum wages and the inability of farm workers to sustain their families on even the proposed increase in their minimum wage.

A recommendation from the study was that the state should play a more active role in ensuring that both agricultural producers and workers have bargaining power by considering the whole value chain and not simply parts of it.

The research revealed that both agricultural producers and workers were withdrawing from the sector so it was vital for the state to realise that the prosperity of producers and workers was interlinked.

  Christine Cuénod