Between Precarity and Paternalism: Farm Workers and Trade Unions in South Africa's Western Cape Province

Abstract

The labour market in rural areas of South Africa’s Western Cape province has undergone considerable changes over the last thirty years. New labour and tenure legislation protecting farm workers combined with trade liberalisation, the abolition of subsidies and in-migration from other areas of South Africa has significantly reshaped labour on commercial farms. There is an increasing divide between permanent farm workers and a growing pool of precariously employed workers who labour seasonally on farms and are frequently employed through labour brokers. These divisions came to a head in 2012 when workers, many of whom work seasonally on farms, launched a strike that was to last for six months. Trade unions have struggled to organise an increasingly fragmented rural labour market and at the same time negotiate the forms of paternalism that continue to exert a strong influence over rural labour relations. Based on interviews with trade union organisers, this article examines how they have responded to the twin challenges of labour broking and paternalism. The farm strikes highlight the need for a form of social movement unionism that goes beyond wage demands and tackles the multiple factors that influence poverty in rural areas.