Dr Walter Chambati

Dr Walter Chambati, a research fellow working with the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) Chair in Social Policy under the College of Graduate Studies at Unisa, recently presented his research on "Rural trade unions and the protection of labour rights in Zimbabwe’s new agrarian landscape"

The exploitation of agricultural workers who undertake wage labour in new farms created by Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform programme has been an ongoing struggle. While there has been a tendency by some analysts to view agricultural workers as passive victims of land reform, this is untrue as they respond to the challenges within the farming landscape that is without a labour market in diverse ways. Exploitation always elicits resistance, and the resistance of workers is dynamic and epitomises their contradictory class interests. The research enquiry under examination looks at the agency of workers in the labour market, in relation to how they deploy different forms of power to advance their material conditions. After 2000, this research enquiry emphasised individual responses to exploitation of workers. The worker resistance is a response to the neglect of collective action by workers’ organisations such as trade unions and political parties.

Worker resistance has had a long history in large-scale commercial farming (LSCF) and has occurred since Zimbabwe’s colonial era, but mainly outside of trade unions until the twentieth century. In 1934, white workers across all industries were allowed to form unions, while black workers (excluding agricultural workers) were given permission to form the same in 1959. The unionisation of black agricultural workers was only allowed after 1980 (after the removal of the Masters and Servants Act of 1899). The Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) was instrumental in worker mobilisation in the early years of Zimbabwe’s independence. These early unionisation efforts, together with State led regulation of labour markets, contributed to the partial improvement of labour relations in the LSCF. However, these gains were short-lived due to the economic structural adjustment policies initiated by ZANU-PF in 1991, after which the State became averse to the disruption of production by labour. These newly created legal restrictions impeded the work of rural trade unions. Moreover, by 1999, the non-accountability of trade union leadership created organisational challenges which undermined the recruitment of workers to such an extent that many workers remain detached from the trade unions to this day.

After 2000, the land redistribution programme created new farmers who continued to perpetuate labour exploitation. According to Chambati’s research, which was conducted in Goromonzi and Kwekwe, there has been an increase in labour informality. There are many workers who work part-time or are casual workers with verbal contracts. These workers experience challenges related to being overworked and underpaid. Many long-term agricultural workers now work shifts that are longer than eight hours and earn less than they used to in the early years of independence (even when accounting for inflation). Additionally, some workers are not paid on time, and those who are permanent workers are largely dependent on their employers for both work and housing which was a practise widely seen in the former LSCF sector.

Resistance to super-exploitation mainly takes place without the involvement of rural trade unions. Unionisation, which never really gained traction in the countryside, was further weakened in the 2000s by the various land reform policies. Only a few of the permanent workers who were surveyed by Chambati knew about trade union operations, and none were bona fide members of any union.

The informality of farm labour and the multiple occupations pursued by agricultural workers hamper the mobilisation of these labourers into trade unions that focus only on their identity as agricultural workers. Radical actions by trade unions through labour strikes to disrupt capital accumulation have been curtailed by restrictive labour legislation and threats of worker retrenchments. Expensive legal action is now the predominant strategy deployed by unions to fight poor working conditions on new farms.

Instead of relying on trade unions, the resistance seen by agricultural workers is based on them instrumentalising their affiliation to political parties, mobilising their identity and utilising their scarce skills in specialised agricultural production activities such as horticulture and tobacco production to bargain for higher wages in these newly created farms. Moreover, workers have alternative non-wage sources of livelihood which are used to de-link themselves from labour markets. Thus far, resistance has failed to turn the tide of exploitation. Instead, resistance is still mediated by the State and by capital, who push back to advance capital accumulation.

* By Hanli Wolhuter, Communication and Marketing Specialist, College of Graduate Studies & Musa Buthelezi, Intern, College of Graduate Studies