The Western Cape Farm Workers strike 2012-2013
Storyboard Text
- Despite the low minimum salaries, many laborers pay farm owners for power, water, and rent.
- We are living poor condition as farm workers
- Another form of micro-credit is when farm employees take out loans from the owners, trapping them in a debt cycle
- Permanent workers live in deplorable conditions, which are aggravated by inflation's rising cost of living, and where workers already face food insecurity and a lack of access to nutritious food. On farms in the Western Cape, several exploitative behaviours are frequent.
- Micro-credit is used on some farms, where workers pay rent for small properties held by the farmers, but the expense of rent traps the worker in a debt cycle with the farmer..
- Farms are sometimes located many kilometres from the nearest metropolitan centre or store, leaving them with little choice but to buy essential goods from the farmer.
- According to a survey by Human Rights Watch, barely 3% of farm workers in the Western Cape were members of a trade union in 2012.
- Although the Dop system (also known as the Tot system in English and involving payment in alcohol) was outlawed in the 1960s, there are still farmers who use it to exploit their workers, perpetuating a cycle of alcoholism, particularly among children suffering from Foetal Alcohol Syndrome.
- Agricultural employment is seasonal, and farmworkers are hired during the harvest season. In2012, slightly more than half of the 121 000 agricultural laborers employed in Western Cape farms were seasonal, largely women, and were hired through labour brokers.
- Because farm workers are under represented in unions, their bargaining strength is undermined, and thosewho are not members of unions are unable to join in a protected strike, putting their already precarious jobs on farms in jeopardy.
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