By Joshua Amuphadhi
WINDHOEK — Four years after independence, Namibia's farm workers have yet to see their employers' attitudes change. Workers face unjustified dismissal, assault and exploitation at the hands of predominantly white farmers. Few blacks have entered into commercial farming.
While the Labour Act of 1992 was meant to provide for fair treatment of farm workers and guard against unfair dismissals, labourers on commercial farms say it is a toothless barking dog. Cathleen Shikomba, a government labour inspector in northern Namibia, says her office has received more than 500 cases of abuse and unfair dismissals in the last six months.
Lucas Luiperd and seven others working at a farm 80 km east of Windhoek were retrenched when their employer, Coen Brandt, sold the farm a year ago. Brandt confirmed that he paid Luiperd a "retrenchment package" of N$2000 (US$600) after more than 10 years of service. Luiperd says his colleagues received the same amount, regardless of the number of years employed. They had worked for between five and 25 years.
Luiperd earned N$50 (US$15) monthly wages when he joined Brandt in 1983. The wages had increased to N$150 when he was retrenched. He lives with six dependents: "The money I was being paid could not even cover the education of all my children ... There has been little change since independence. Workers are dismissed without reason, and there is nobody to help us." He does say, however, that many workers have begun to "stand up for their rights".
In addition to their pay — described by trade unions as "starvation wages" — farm workers receive food rations of mealie meal (ground corn), bread flour, sugar and tea or coffee, depending on the "generosity" of the farmer.
According to the coordinator of the Farm Workers' Committee of the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW), Nokokure Tjizera, many farmers have tuckshops, where their workers buy goods on credit. "Sometimes the credit is more than 60% of what the worker earns. This is just another form of cutting wages."
Farm workers do not receive benefits such as medical and pension schemes, which many companies provide. The Labour Act says farmers should provide adequate housing and free grazing for the workers' livestock, which a few do manage to buy.
Tjizera says very few farmers have implemented the labour law. With unemployment high, many Namibians are ready to grab any job. He says farmers take advantage of the fact that workers are illiterate, making them sign documents about conditions of work and wages they do not understand. There are no official statistics, but farm workers make up a significant part of the Namibian work force.
According to NUNW figures, about 700 workers were dismissed from farms in the last year. More than 70% of these people owned livestock and had nowhere to go. Some were squatting between farms and along roads.
"Farm workers are not free to organise themselves. They can be fired at anytime, they work on holidays without overtime pay, and they sleep in shacks constructed from motor fuel containers", says Tjizera.
Apart from being ignorant of the Labour Act, many workers come forth with grievances only after dismissal. In April, farm worker Jacobus Gomachab said he was assaulted and fired by his employer, Nico Slabbert of Farm Josina outside Windhoek: "After beating me with fists, he threw me into the car and took me to the dam, where he continued to hit me repeatedly in front of other workers and ordered me again to get into the car".
He says he was driven back to the farmhouse, where Slabbert paid him his monthly salary of N$50, gave him one kilogram of mealie meal, 500 grams of sugar, two packets of tea, one gram of tobacco, a box of matches and an old suitcase to pack up all his belongings. He was fired.
Gomachab had worked at Farm Josina for more than two years. He managed the farm for Slabbert, who lives in South Africa and comes to the farm mainly at the end of each month to pay his workers.
In another incident, a maize farmer in Grootfontein, Horst Kronsbein, was convicted in magistrate court after torturing 23-year-old Felix Lilatu with a cattle prod in July 1993. Kronsbein was sentenced to six months' imprisonment or a fine of N$900 (US$300).
The Namibian Agricultural Union, an organisation of mainly commercial farmers, says its members are being advised to adhere to the Labour Act.
The National Assembly has discussed the conditions of farm workers and suggested a commission of inquiry be set up. The NUNW has launched the Namibian Agricultural Workers Union to tackle farm workers' issues.
[From AIA news agency via Worknet (South Africa).]