Speaking in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), Dr Lali Naidoo reported that workers in the commercial farming sector in the Eastern Cape remain largely unorganised, low-wage and unprotected. The same pattern is true, more generally, across South Africa. Workers were employed in a secondary, and highly segmented, labour market, with weak labour market policies and social protections. Dr Naidoo, a member of the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU), was addressing the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on the living and working conditions of farm workers and -dwellers.
Dr Naidoo noted that collective bargaining, union membership and full compliance with the law were rare. The challenge, she stressed, went well beyond enforcement. Commercial agriculture remains a major employer, but commercial farmers -- the employers -- operate in liberalised and buyer-driven product markets. South Africa was a leading exporter of produce like citrus and mohair, but within global value chains dominated by retailers, especially in the global North. With state subsidies largely phased out in the 1990s, farmers came under heavy pressure to cut costs and maximise quality and output.
This hindered comprehensive compliance with national and international labour and tenure laws, and reinforced unequal power relations, with workers segmented by gender, race, nationality and position in the value chain. Steps to address the situation could include: farmworker and farm-dweller organising, legal and policy reforms (and enforcement) including better social protection and a higher minimum wage, and evaluating the support that producers and farmers need to improve both their labour relations and product market positions.
Dr Naidoo is the director of the East Cape Agricultural Research Project (ECARP), a Makhana-based, non-profit organisation working in agrarian political economy and with farm workers, farm dwellers and small-scale farmers in the Sarah Baartman and Amathole municipal districts in the Eastern Cape. ECARP is partnered with the Phakamani Siyephambili movement, which has 83 farm-committees, and 14 area committees. She recently completed her PhD on minimum wages in the agricultural sector of the Eastern Cape. Her presentation was submitted to the Portfolio Committee in July.