Immigrants paid minimum wage: expert

While the grape farmers and the Zimbabweans insist that farm workers are paid an average R60 a day, the South African government and restive local workers oppose this, saying the migrants were paid as little as R40 a day. This, locals argue, undermined workers demands for higher wages and as a result, farmers hired Zimbabweans at the expense of South

Africans.

However, lawyer and co-ordinator of the Labour and Enterprise Policy Research Group at the University of Cape Town Jan Theron last week refuted the government position. Our study found no evidence of underpayment. In fact there was higher level of compliance with the minimum wage prescribed in the sectoral determination [for the farming sector], Theron said in an article published by the Cape Times last week.

Although the study which sought to find out how the workplace in many sectors had been transformed since 1994 was conducted at the end of last year, Theron said it was unlikely that there had been a significant sea change in the wage structure. What was surprising was that most workers living off-farm, including the Zimbabweans, were earning R10 a day above the minimum wage. This was more than most permanent workers were earning, wrote the former general secretary of the Food and Canning Workers Union and of the

Food and Allied Workers Union.

Last week, Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana charged that some farmers were found to be underpaying migrant workers, particularly Zimbabweans. His comments followed the violent removal of over 1000 Zimbabweans two weeks ago from their adopted homes in Stofland, a shanty settlement overlooking the grape producing Hex Valley, some 130

km north of Cape Town.

The Zimbabweans are currently housed in massive tents at a sports field in De Doorns while the local leadership grapples with their predicament. The South African government wants the Zimbabweans to return to their shattered homes but the migrants will hear none of this, fearing for their safety. The Zimbabweans last week accused the local councillor of fanning the attacks to boost his chances of re-election in local government elections slated for 2011.

Mdladlana last Thursday blamed the violence on labour brokers and farmers, saying they were not paying workers the stipulated minimum wages. He said that some farmers did not how much their workers earned.

Theron said there was cutthroat competition for business among labour brokers in the valley and it was clear last year that labour brokers losing out in the competition for contracts was potentially an incendiary factorsomeone just had to say I have had enough of these Zimbabweans and violence would break out. South African law provides for labour brokers (middlemen) who in practice are the actual employers of labour which they deploy to the farms. The farmers pay the brokers who in turn pay the workers.