Parliament will to everything in its power to ensure farm workers benefit from democracy

Leader of parliament's joint delegation of the employment committee on employment and labour and agriculture, rural development and land reform Lindelwa Dunjwa says the farming sector stands out for all the wrong reasons. 

The committee is conducting oversight “to hear the cries of farm workers and act on them”.

“We have to right this wrong if we were to instil the human dignity of this vulnerable sector of our population and labour market. This nationwide oversight process that has now been to six provinces seeks to unveil the yoke of servitude that happens under the cloak of secrecy on farms and to urge the departments and entities charged with the task of alleviating the plight of farm workers to act in a concerted and well co-ordinated effort to bring an end to their miseries,” she said.  

“However, for this to happen, we must be bold enough to recognise the inefficiencies of policies and pieces of legislation where they exist without ambiguity.” 

Dunjwa added that the continued subjection of farmworkers to unlawful conduct is an indictment on SA's bill of rights and the promise of a better life for all. 

She said the oversight process seeks to make farmer owners aware of their responsibilities in terms of the Labour Relations Act.

“If at the end we have found that there are any weaknesses in the existing policies and pieces of legislation that govern labour relations, we will address them to ensure the working and living conditions of farm workers and dwellers stand the test of our human rights culture because we are all equal before the law irrespective of the labour market that one finds him/herself in,” Dunjwa said. 

Parliamentarians will do everything legally within their means to ensure farm workers enjoy the gains of SA's hard-fought democracy, she said. 

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