Over the past two days, the Agri Worker Indaba, hosted by Fairtrade, has spotlighted social ills on wine farms across the Western Cape, with a key focus on developing lasting solutions to the challenges raised.
The indaba aim was to to build labour relations and address salient issues on Fairtrade-certified wine farms.
The first day started with a presentation by Mario Williams, programmes office at Fairtrade Africa, on improving workers understanding of compliance and financial management of Fairtrade Premium Funds.
This was followed by a session by Thenji Sharuh, consumer education specialist at First National Bank, on financial literacy . She took the workers through financial planning, budgeting, savings and investments and how to manage their money.
Unpacking farmworker issues
This session was prompted by a concern around financial literacy and the financial management of Fairtrade Premium funds which are allocated to workers from Fairtrade-certified wine farms, said Emerentia Patientia, senior project officer for the Dignified Opportunities Nurtured through Trade and Sustainability (DONTS) wine project in South Africa.
Caren-Lee Smith from the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbritration (CCMA) presented ways to build work relationships, dealing with conflict in the workplace, and the grievance procedure.
This was followed by a presentation by Unathi Ramabulana from the department of employment and labour (DoEL) on understanding and identifying child labour and its impact, causes and gender inclusive tools for solutions.
On day two, Ramabulana concluded the indaba with a discussions around hours of work, leave, particulars of employment and termination of employment. It also covered the minimum wage employers are required to pay.
The indaba formed part of the Dignified Opportunities Nurtured Through Trade and Sustainability (DONUTS) wine project, a human rights based programme funded by Fairtrade Finland. Funding has been secured from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in Finland for a development cooperation programme from 2022 – 2025 and it complements the Fairtrade certification on farms.
Williams said the aim of the indaba was to ensure that their producers are on par with addressing many socials issues within the communities where they are operating.
“It is important to identify different forms of child labour, sometimes we want to identify child labour as the child who works on the farms, but child labour is anything that interferes of the child attending school, issues of going against the constitutional rights of the child.
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Employers must be part of the solution
Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu) provincial organiser Sandile Keni said it was critically important that employers also be part of the indaba.
“We need to emphasise that we need employers to be part of this gathering, so that we can share this information with them. As trade unions we are not their enemies but we want them to come on board so that we all find lasting solutions that concern us as stakeholders in the industry,” he said.
Keni called on farmworkers to belong to labour unions because if they are unable to address issues in their workplace, unions could step in.
Meanwhile, chief director at the department of employment and labour responsible for international relations Sipho Ndebele said their partnerships with FairTrade and International Labour Organisation was focusing on issues of child labour and pilot projects were running in some parts of the country.
“Child labour is an area of concern for us as government, we have identified Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal to run our projects in those areas,” he said.
Ndebele defended the department and said they have fewer inspectors to do routine check-ins on farms. “It is not about the numbers. The reality of the matter is even if you have a million inspectors, there is no way we will have inspectors in every workplace, hence it is important that government collaborate with all stakeholders, including the media.
“We need to co-exist with all relevant role players for us to get to the bottom of the child labour practices in the country. We need to assist each other. We cannot over-emphasise the importance of social partners, government alone cannot do it,” he said.
Deon Muller, a farmworker at Du Toitskloof Wines in Rawsonville, said coming to gatherings like the indaba helps them as farmworkers to understand legislation better and offers a better platform to raise their concerns with the government.
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