Zimbabweans working on the farms in northern Limpopo province, South Africa are becoming more visible in public policy debates. They have been the subject of human rights reports and academic studies documenting abuses of commission or omission by state officials, white and black farm employers and farm management staff (Lincoln & Mararike, 2000; SAHRC, 2003:105-106; RI, 2004; HRW, 2006), threatened targets of mass deportations (SABC, 15 October 2001), viewed as potential HIV/AIDS carriers (IOM, 2004), objects of international memoranda of understanding (Eveleth, 1999a), and cited as examples of the violent despotism of the ZANU (PF) regime (SPT, 2004:64ff). While we have learnt much from this growing attention on the possible legal, policy or activist interventions arising out of human rights or development agendas, we highlight here the importance of also paying attention to the precarious transnational terrain of economic survival these Zimbabwean farm workers pursue. We also stress the particular politics that shapes their reception in South Africa. In so doing, we can better situate the proposed interventions into the wider politics of land in the region.
Our analytical starting point is Henry Bernstein’s argument that perspectives locked in the historical frameworks of the agrarian question overlook how agrarian struggles today are shaped more by the systemic crisis in the reproduction of labour and their contingent politics rather than following prescribed trajectories of national level changes. He thus calls for:
an agrarian political economy less confined by its historic sources and preoccupations and more committed to problematising what is changing in today’s (globalising) capitalism.
(Bernstein, 2006:13; see also Hart, 2002; Bernstein, 2004; Peters, 2004)
Based on ethnographic research and interviews carried out in 2004 and 2005 and a survey of 143 Zimbabwean farm workers in 2005, we examine how these Zimbabweans seek pathways of survival. Over 100 interviews were carried out, including with various government officials working in provincial departments of labour and health and national departments of immigration, home affairs, defence and land; provincial and national officials of trade unions and non-governmental organisations; farmers and farmers’ association officials; and Zimbabweans currently or previously working on northern Limpopo farms, or seeking work on them. Short periods of ethnographic research were carried out on six different commercial farms that were predominantly involved in citrus production. The participant observation and interviews sought insight into state practices, state and non-governmental policy contexts and interventions, and on-farm arrangements regarding farm workers and their livelihood practices. The survey of Zimbabwean farm workers was conducted on four different farms in the last half of 2005. The sample was random, but biased towards permanent farm workers who were more willing to respond to questions than seasonal workers.
The overall aim of this research was to analyse how the economic activities of these Zimbabweans are informed both by ambivalent state practices towards them in this border-zone and shifts in the political economy of the South African agricultural sector. By exploring overlapping and at times competing power relations at the points of intersection between the farm, state and region, we outline practices of rule, relations of accommodation, and forms of resistance that shape the livelihood strategies. This can help rethink interventions predicated on this newfound visibility through overlapping and, at times, contesting frames of human rights and sovereignty.
The Soutpansberg ‘Zone of Exception’: Northern Limpopo
Each commercial farming area found in the semi-arid region south of the Limpopo River and north of the Soutpansberg mountains, a 130 kilometre long strip of volcanic and sedimentary rock ranging in altitude up to 1,700 meters, is said to be ‘full of Zimbabweans’. Zimbabwean farm workers are also found in other parts of Limpopo province (formerly called Northern province and then part of Transvaal) as well as elsewhere in South Africa. The presence of Zimbabweans working on these farms is not new, but their numbers, their geographic origins, and their social characteristics have changed since 2000.
Before 2000, Zimbabweans who came to the farms did so almost exclusively because of dwindling economic opportunities in Zimbabwe largely as a consequence of the adoption of a structural adjustment policy (Zinyama, 1999). As others have noted, this transnational movement was facilitated by the ‘opening-up’ in post-apartheid South Africa, attracting immigrants from southern and other parts of Africa, even though apartheid immigration policies and attitudes continued to hold sway in the 1990s (Crush, 1998; Harris, 2001). Zimbabweans who work on the northern Limpopo farms are largely part of the widespread displacement of Zimbabweans that has occurred since 2000. That resulted from the ZANU (PF) government seeking to maintain power at all costs and the subsequent dramatic economic decline. Some are Operation Murambatsvina (‘refuse trash’) refugees, who sought work on South African farms following destruction of their urban-based livelihoods and homes in Harare starting in May 2005 (see UN, 2005; Bracking, 2005). Others have fled persecution for their explicit or putative political affiliations. Most saw the need to find work in South Africa arising out of the drastic reduction of economic possibilities at home. As one put it,
It is hard now in Zimbabwe. It is like you are in jail in Zimbabwe; the government is the new jail. Individually you can’t do anything but jumping the border to save your life and family.
It is difficult to determine the exact number of Zimbabweans who have been working on these farms just as it is for figuring out the total number of undocumented immigrants living in South Africa today (SAMP, 2001). On the 200 or so South African commercial farms north of the Soutpansberg range, estimates suggest 7085% of the farm workers are Zimbabwean, with at least 15,000 to 20,000 of them working and living there (Lincoln & Mararike, 2000; NPDoL, 2000; IOM, 2003:18, 2004:17). In July 2005, four farmers gave Rutherford estimates on the percentage of Zimbabweans in their workforce. The figures ranged from 63 to 91 per cent of the total workforce, including 80 to 100 per cent of the seasonal workforce. Of the total workforce on these four farms of 1,330 farm workers, 82% (1,084) were from Zimbabwe.
The dramatic growth in the number of Zimbabweans ‘jumping the border’, including those seeking work on the border farms, is also evidenced by the increasing number of Zimbabweans caught and deported from South Africa from 17,000 in 2001 to nearly 100,000 in 2005 (HRW 2006:9). One estimate indicates from May 2005 to around January 2007, 80,000 Zimbabweans were deported (Honey, 2007). Although the IOM and the Zimbabwean government are trying to limit this transnational movement with the opening of an IOM office in Beitbridge, many Zimbabwean deportees still simply make another attempt at crossing back into South Africa (Chibaya, 2006).
The increasing numbers of the Zimbabwean farm workers in northern Limpopo province signal the growing crises in Zimbabwe itself as other recent studies on Zimbabwean emigration have noted (Bloch, 2005; McGregor, forthcoming). But the situation facing these Zimbabweans on the northern Limpopo farms are also shaped by what Lincoln and Mararike (2000) call the ‘special employment zone,’ a historical zone of exception for this farming area in regards to immigration laws and practices.
The legal status of these Zimbabwean workers has been contested. Until the late 1990s, state officials had made exceptions for the farmers between the Soutpansberg mountains and the Zimbabwean border by enabling them to ‘legally’ hire Zimbabwean workers without going through normal worker permit state administrative channels. In interviews with farmers and government officials that had been working since the apartheid era, the exception was justified through an intertwining of cultural claims and labour supply. Most of the Zimbabwean workers were initially said to be Venda from the Beitbridge area. They were said to have family ties to South African Venda living in the Soutpansberg area so the border control for them was quite lax. It enabled them to cross over and visit family and friends and to work on the white farms. After the end of apartheid, this argument became more relevant in light of farmers’ claims there were insufficient farm workers from South Africa. Farmers said there were no South African Communal Areas (former Bantustans) near the border, that government-provided family allowances was a ‘disincentive’ for unemployed South Africans in Musina, Thohoyandou, and other areas in the region to work on farms, and South Africans did not like to work on farms but rather waited for ‘desk jobs’. Needless to say, farmers and their supporters rarely mentioned the issue of low wages and harsh working and living conditions as a ‘disincentive’ to attract South African workers (Crush, 2000 for an overview of the debate).1 The ANC government continued the practice of exempting these border farmers from the normal immigration channels, albeit putatively with some reluctance (Crush & Tshitereke, 2001:57; Peberdy & Crush, 1998:33-34).
This special dispensation was increasingly challenged in the late 1990s by a variety of actors (Ratshitanga, 1998; City Press, 22 February 1998; SAPA, 10 February 1999; Eveleth, 1999a, 1999b; Sowetan, 9 December 1999; NPDoL, 2000; Crush, 2000:10; SAHRC, 2003). The contemporary ‘special employment zone’ north of the Soutpansberg has ended. Any farmer in South Africa can make a request to recruit Zimbabwean workers through a corporate permit if they can get Labour Department attestation that there are no South Africans who can do the job and, theoretically, an inspection to say they are complying with labour laws (see HRW, 2006:14-15). But the ‘legality’ of these permits is still in dispute as farm workers complain they can still be deported if they have corporate permits or if they are missing aspects of it due to a bureaucratic delay on the South African or Zimbabwean side (HRW, 2006:25-26). We also learned that those Zimbabweans who simply carry identity cards issued by the farmer, with no basis in law, can at times avoid deportation by showing that card to soldiers, police officers or Department of Home Affairs officials if stopped or confronted during ‘raids’ of farm compounds in this border zone. The history of this ‘zone of exception’ thus conditions the responses of state officials on occasion and creates an insecure terrain for the livelihood practices of these Zimbabweans (Rutherford, 2006). We heard of a number of raids on farm compounds in this zone, grabbing and deporting in particular those who had just started working or had yet to secure employment. Even for those who had worked for a number of years on these farms noted that they needed to endure through occasional raids in the middle of the night and, as one put it,
This overlap and potential tension between state and farming practices are also found in the changes in the political economy of agriculture, providing another important context informing the situation of these Zimbabweans.Changing Political Economy of Agriculture
The widespread violations of Zimbabwean farm workers in the border zone of exception go contradict the South African government’s stated objective of improving conditions for all farm workers, regardless of nationality (SAPA, 2001). It is therefore unsurprising that the government tends to place all responsibility for the violations – which include paying below minimum wage, unlawful deductions from workers remuneration and overtime without workers consent – upon the mainly white farmers who employ Zimbabweans (Sunday Times, 14 October 2001; SABC, 15 January 2006). The scapegoating of (predominantly white) farmers masks the role of the government as the facilitator of agricultural restructuring processes that enable the incorporation of Zimbabweans under such adverse terms. While it is important to address the often illegal employment practices of South African farmers, it is also important to understand how they have employed Zimbabweans as responses to both sectoral deregulation and instances of post-apartheid reregulation, as in the introduction of minimum wage laws and the land reform programme. Moreover, the adverse incorporation of Zimbabwean migrants produced by restructuring is only one example of intensified exploitation for casual labour across the agricultural sector (Ewert & du Toit, 2005). It is crucial therefore to connect the disadvantaged incorporation of Zimbabweans with the wider politicaleconomic processes that have produced the conditions of their employment. Although agricultural restructuring originated under the National Party (NP) in the 1980s, the developments since 1994 show how the ANC-led government’s policies contribute to the employment of low waged Zimbabweans in northern Limpopo as farmers try to remain competitive under new conditions.
On coming to power in 1994, the ANC’s approach to the agricultural sector was framed within what Neva Makgetla (2004) termed the ANC’s ‘competitiveness strategy’. This broad growth strategy was premised upon export-led development and attracting foreign investment. It became crystallised in 1996 with the adoption of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) programme. As part of GEAR, the state was explicitly designated a ‘facilitative’ role for capital – focused around setting up preferential trade agreements, helping establish new export markets and directing the economy towards an outward orientation (Greenberg, 2003:54). Under these terms, government economic policy became based upon the ‘freeing up’ of markets through deregulation and privatisation, ending of tariffs and state subsidies on production and a conservative monetary and fiscal policy (Makgetla, 2004:269). Throughout the 1990s but especially after 1996, the agricultural sector underwent a thorough process of deregulation. This was evidenced by the dismantling of apartheid-era marketing boards, privatisation of cooperatives and removal of practically all direct subsidies for (white) farmers. Trade liberalisation was also accelerated after 1996 when South Africa became a member of the Cairns group, and committed itself to tariff reductions irrespective of progress developed countries make in phasing out subsidies (Van Zyl, Vink, Kirsten & Poonyth, 2001:728-732).
Restructuring under these neo-liberal terms did not lead simply to increased productivity or efficiency in agriculture as some proponents of the competitive strategy argue. Rather, the impact was uneven across the agricultural sector, as the state reconfigured the system to channel support towards capital-intensive and export producers (Makgetla, 2004:270). As previous subsides and trade barriers were removed, an increasingly competitive environment forced many commercial farms out of the sector (Hall, 2004:45). The 2002 agricultural census noted that there were 57,980 commercial farming units in 1993, but only 45,818 in 2002. In terms of labour, some farm workers had their position as higher paid, ‘core’ workers entrenched while others were phased out or subjected to intensified exploitation, often as seasonal labour (Ewert & du Toit, 2005). In a recent study, Wegerif, Russell & Grundling (2005:33) noted that the total number of paid employees decreased from 1,093,265 in 1993 to 940,815 in 2002. The trend of casualisation can be noted in the increased ratio of casual workers over the same period. There were 647,839 permanent workers and 445,360 casual workers in 1993, and 481,375 permanent workers and 459,445 causal workers in 2002.
As part of deepening trends towards labour casualisation, migrant labour (often undocumented) became increasingly central to commercial agriculture (Crush, 2000; Landau, 2005:3). Undocumented migrants are attractive to farmers because they are easily accessible and disposable virtually on demand (especially for farms in border areas or along migration routes) and are vulnerable to a wide-range of abuse and exploitation (HRW, 2006). As the case of Zimbabwean migrants confirms, the employment of migrants has enabled many farms to adapt to the more competitive environment ushered in by sectoral restructuring.
Within Limpopo province, the national trend of consolidation appears particularly marked. To cite figures from the Department of Agriculture (2006), in 1996 there were 7,200 commercial farming units in Limpopo but in 2002 this number dropped to 2,915. Farmers who remained on the land by apartheid-era subsidies were no longer viable in the deregulated environment, causing many to leave crop farming. A small section of the sector benefited from the process of consolidation, namely the largescale, export-oriented citrus and vegetable producers, confirmed by the vast expansion of production and output of the two main crops – oranges and tomatoes – since the mid-1990s (Department of Agriculture, 2006).
Changes in agricultural labour market patterns over the same period reflect the ongoing casualisation of labour. Yet, over the period from 1993 to 2002, the total paid farm employment in Limpopo increased from 93,116 to 101,249 (Department of Agriculture, 2006). This seems to make Limpopo something of an anomaly compared to national employment trends in agriculture which reveal a total decrease in employment. However, it is important to observe that job creation in Limpopo occurred on the causal or seasonal basis, while permanent or ‘full-time’ employment decreased along with the national trends. This can be seen when figures from the 2002 census are compared with an employment survey conducted by the Department of Agriculture in 1997. The latter survey suggests that there were approximately 28,000 casual workers in 1996, and the 2002 census notes a figure of 38,614 casual workers. Moreover, the growth of casual employment in Limpopo reflects the growing incorporation of Zimbabwean migrants as seasonal workers on the farms of the ‘special economic zone’. Hence, despite the high unemployment in Limpopo and the appearance of a surplus of ‘local labour’ in the former homeland areas adjacent to this ‘special economic zone’ (NPDoL, 2000; Lahiff 2000:76-78), commercial farms phased in Zimbabwean labour at unprecendented rates over the past decade.
The introduction of minimum wage laws and other progressive legislation such as ESTA for farm workers appear to offer little or nothing for most Zimbabwean migrant farm workers in Limpopo (and, incidentally, most South African farm workers). In the absence of enforcement mechanisms, the minimum wage laws have merely encouraged farmers to seek out undocumented migrants. As Wegerif et al. (2005) have noted with regard to tenure security, evictions of farm dwellers have actually increased since tenure security laws have been introduced.
Given these trends, it appears the nominal ‘intentions’ of the government have been superseded by the logic of the wider restructuring process itself. Seen in this light, the large number of vulnerable and disadvantaged Zimbabwean farm workers in the ‘special economic zone’ are definitely not an ‘unintended consequence’ of otherwise sound deregulation policies. Rather, their presence and conditions of employment are bound up with a more fundamental class project associated with the current phase of neo-liberal restructuring.2 We can now see how Zimbabwean farm workers have managed to cope with their adverse incorporation.
Strategies of Survival & Resistance
Zimbabweans sought employment on these farms for both their own survival and that of dependants. Their survival strategies on South African farms varied according to the time that they began work and there are differences along gender lines. The former is of interest in terms of examining how the crisis in Zimbabwe that noticeably began in 2000 played out. Gender is important to investigate as it strongly structures and differentiates livelihood practices in the region whether they are land-based, trading, or formal sector employment. Many of the farming jobs were reserved for men or women, with seasonal jobs in citrus packsheds, for example, being given mainly to women while seasonal citrus-picking went mainly to men. Gender also is important in shaping access to resources back in Zimbabwe and forms of responsibility to relatives. Here we merely note any relevant differences in livelihood practices along gender lines or year of starting work in South Africa, leaving further analysis for future research. We then briefly examine how this adverse terrain for the livelihoods of these Zimbabwean farm workers generates its own forms of social agency by providing an example of a strike.
In the survey of 143 Zimbabwean farm workers in northern Limpopo province, there were 79 men and 64 women in the sample. The ages ranged from 15 (3 workers) to 60 years old, with the average age of the workers being 29 and the mode being 21 years old. The average year in which they arrived in South Africa is 1999, with the mode being 2005. There was only a slight difference by gender, with 2000 being the average year for the arrival of the women respondents. The survey was biased towards permanent workers (just over 50% of the sample). On average the respondents worked for 50 months on the farm they were surveyed, whereas most Zimbabweans working on the border farms were temporary, seasonal workers. There were similarities between men and women surveyed, with just over 50% of the men and 50% of the women being permanent workers, with the men on average working for the last 49 months and women for the last 51 months on the farm. Despite the fact that most were permanent workers, the average pay in the survey was just under 571 Rand per month, below the minimum wage of 785 Rand. The mode was 300 Rand per month. Men on average received higher wages than women, 605 Rand to 530 Rand.
Those who came in the 1990s did so seeking better economic chances in South Africa than in Zimbabwe or were fleeing some situation ‘back home’. At that point, they knew there were opportunities in Zimbabwe but they decided instead to come to South Africa. In contrast, all the Zimbabwean farm workers we met who came to South Africa after 1999 saw the need to find work there arising out of the drastic reduction of economic possibilities back in Zimbabwe. As one put it, ‘Individually you can’t do anything but jumping the border to save your life and family.’ Loss of jobs, thwarted educational ambitions and food insecurity were common themes explaining presence in South Africa.
A number of workers had educational and trade qualifications and experience that had given them reasonable jobs in Zimbabwe which they had lost due to disruptions in the last six years, relating to the systemic crisis in the reproduction of labour there. The average educational level achieved of the surveyed workers was Grade 7, with 24% achieving their O levels and 1 worker A levels. There was a slight difference by gender, with the average level of school achieved for men being Grade 8 and Grade 6 for women. There was a more noticeable difference in terms of year of arrival on the South African farms. Over 50% of the 90 workers who had arrived since 2000 had some secondary school education. Nearly 80% had at least 7 years of schooling, having on average just under 8.5 years of schooling. In contrast, the average of the 53 workers who arrived before 2000 was just under six years, and only 53% had at least 7 years of schooling. The survey suggests that Zimbabweans with greater educational qualifications may find work on these South African farms since 2000. Farm workers we interviewed also made this point, as many of the Zimbabwean farm workers talked disparagingly about needing to work in harsh, low-paying jobs on farms, despite having educational qualifications or even work experience that should mean they would have ‘better jobs’.
We also met a number of young men and women – who claimed to be in their late teens, but some looked younger – who came to earn money to try to pay school fees to continue with their education. They said that their parents or older siblings could no longer afford to pay for their school fees or examination fees so they followed a relative to a borderland farm to earn money on their own. If they actually end up resuming their education is another matter, especially given the difficulty of finding decently paid work in Zimbabwe even if one has educational or training qualifications. This situation is exemplified by those with recognised qualifications (including teaching certificates) now working on South African farms as either general labourers or as low-level management workers, typically not making that much more than minimum wage. In the survey, the reason most given why the worker stopped schooling was that they or their guardians lacked money for the student to go further.
Before coming to South Africa, 53 respondents, or more than a third, had no paying job in Zimbabwe. The jobs of the others included 19 in agriculture, 16 domestic workers, 12 who called themselves ‘general labourers’, 8 in retail, 6 were drivers, 5 workers as small-scale miners, and 3 teachers. There were also a few who worked in Zimbabwe as a soldier, an accountant, and a receptionist, among other occupations. There were more women who were not working before coming to South Africa than men, 45% and 30% respectively. The main reason given by both men and women why they were not working, or no longer working in Zimbabwe was that it was not remunerative enough or that they had been retrenched from work. A few said they were chased away from their job.
We heard several histories of Zimbabweans whose jobs were closed down due to political pressure. For example, one man said he worked in a printing company in Bulawayo until 2003 when the employers caved in to political pressure to hire more graduates from the government-organised Border Gezi youth camps, and all employees who were suspected of voting for the opposition MDC lost their jobs. Some young men lamented that they could not find work because they refused to enroll in the youth camps, whereas others tried to get into the ‘Border Gezi’ programmes to get a job in the police or army but were told that all the posts were full. Both groups of young men felt that without certificates of completion at these camps their job opportunities in Zimbabwe were limited so they ‘jumped’ the border to look for work.
Others had been working at their musha (chiShona for a rural home with land) and found it difficult to produce enough because of drought and/or lack of inputs. One man had farmed on his Masvingo mushafor 15 years and never had a wage-labour job before crossing the border in July 2005 to find work on a commercial farm as he failed to harvest anything from his fields. A number of others had access to a musha, but said money was needed to afford the inputs and to buy consumer goods.
The survey showed that 79% (113 of 143) of the Zimbabwean workers had access to a musha (31 on resettlement land and the remaining, or 73%, having land in a Communal Area). Just over 43% (49 of 113) of those with access to a musha were its main landholder, with it belonging to their parents (or, more commonly, their father) for 48 of them, and grandparents or siblings for the remainder. Although both men and women respondents had similar percentages with access to a musha (79% and 78% respectively), there was a difference in how many were the main landholder of the musha, with 51% of the men (32 of 63) and 34% of the women (17 of 50) doing so, signaling the gendered nature of land access in Zimbabwe and southern Africa. Yet having access to land was not the same as being able to survive from it. For example, over 66% of those with access to a musha(75 of 113) said nothing was harvested from the land the previous growing season due to a combination of weather and lack of inputs. As others have noted, the livelihoods of smallholder farming in Zimbabwe have been so intertwined with wage jobs held by others in the family that they suffered along with others with the widespread loss of jobs and retraction of the national economy (Sachikonye, 2003b).
Most Zimbabwean workers we met anxiously tried to keep in touch with family members and dependants back in Zimbabwe (West & Selian, 2005:9-13), finding ways to send money, food items, and occasionally other consumer products back to them. A main motive in our interviewees for coming to South Africa was to earn ‘real money’ to help out family members back in Zimbabwe whether they were spouses, children, or parents.
The survey showed respondents aimed to return to Zimbabwe on a regular basis. Almost 90% had returned to Zimbabwe in the year before, on average 9 months previously. Men and women respondents had similar responses on average. They often went to visit dependants, with the survey showing that workers had on average 4 dependants back in Zimbabwe. Men were supporting slightly more dependants than women, averaging 4.5 compared to 3.7. When workers recounted what they brought back to Zimbabwe on their return trips – be it at the end of the month when they received their salary, the end of the picking season, when they hear of family emergencies, or whenever they could get enough money to head back to Zimbabwe to see a spouse, children, parents or other family members – it was often a list of items that were once basic to many Zimbabwean homes: maize meal, cooking oil, sugar, and soap were the most commonly mentioned, given such ‘necessities’ were scarce in Zimbabwe or too exorbitant in price. A few who had money saved up would bring radios, CD-players, TV’s, clothes, and bicycles, among other items. They would also bring South African Rand to convert into Zimbabwean dollars at the blackmarket rate to give to dependants, buy food and clothes, pay school fees, and so forth. All but 3 of the surveyed workers who returned to Zimbabwe brought food, while less than 50% also brought money back, on average just under 490 Rand. There were noticeable gender differences here as 52% of the men who returned brought money while only 39% of the women did, with the average for men being over 1096 Rand and less than half of that for women at 526 Rand. This may speak to the higher average wages men received.
Two-thirds of the respondents also regularly sent money or food back to dependants, mainly by sending it with others, while a few sent items by mail. There were informal infrastructures in place on some farms to assist these transnational flows. If they could not afford to go back to Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwean farm workers could potentially find someone else to either take Rand back to convert via the black-market in Beitbridge and mail it as a money order to a family member or to take money or goods back to the recipients if they lived near them. Sometimes truck drivers plying the Zimbabwean-South African routes were relied on as couriers. On the farms on the southern edge of the Limpopo River, there often was support given to travel over the border. Arrangements could be made for gates within the border fences to be opened by a farm employee or a soldier to facilitate the border-jumping. These gates are found in front of farms on the southern edge of the Limpopo River to enable farmers to access their irrigation equipment leading into the river. Phone calls could also be made to ensure that someone would meet the travelers on the Zimbabwean side with a vehicle and to look out for thieves. And, if necessary, people can be found to help carry over large goods such as asbestos sheets for roofing, generators, irrigation pipes and automobile parts.
The transnational livelihood strategies of these Zimbabwean farm workers in northern Limpopo were largely strategies of survival for the majority and strategies of potential economic gain for a few. Most workers we talked to saw their situation as grim. Many complained about their working conditions – low wages, long hours, non-transparent calculations of piece-rates and monthly salary deductions, pesticide exposure, etc. – and about their living conditions – crowded, as too many workers were living in one room, unsafe drinking water, unclean or non-existent toilets. Racism and sexual harassment were also common complaints. Workers had examples of how Afrikaner farmers treated Africans as ‘a different species’. They also talked about occasional sexual abuse of women workers by foremen and management workers who used their gate-keeping positions over hiring and allocation of work tasks to demand sexual favours from women workers (see also Lincoln & Mararike, 2000:58). Concerns raised in the survey related mainly to working, living and health conditions and issues of dignity (‘I hate being called a baboon,’ said one worker – complaints that are common to commercial farms in South Africa; see Ewert & du Toit, 2005). The difference the Zimbabweans felt was that employers took advantage of their desperation and the fact that their legality was unclear, as noted by a number of respondents who complained about harassment by police and soldiers and the threat of deportation. Many noted how this limited their potential recourse when they faced a problem in South Africa; as put by one, ‘If you have a problem you may get arrested if you go to the government to complain.’ There were a whole set of issues arising out of the ambiguous legal position they were in. Just over 40% (58 of 143) said they had problems with the police or army in South Africa, with a greater proportion of men (54%) than women (23%) saying they have encountered such problems. The problems ranged from harassment, asking for documents, to 16 cases of deportation and two allegations of torture by security forces.
Whereas shifts in the political economy of agriculture create a greater attraction for farmers to hire the workers and the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe means potential workers are constantly appearing, employers are in a very powerful position. Nonetheless, Zimbabweans work through this marginalised position to try to acquire minimal resources for themselves and possibly their dependants. The ambivalent and adverse incorporation of Zimbabweans in northern South Africa ensures their livelihoods are on uncertain terrain. Yet, most told us that this uncertainty is better than even worse situations back in Zimbabwe.
These Zimbabweans do not necessarily simply accommodate themselves to these largely adverse conditions to survive. There are occasions when they seek to work through some of the power relations and contingent possibilities to potentially improve their livelihood practices. As a gesture towards recognizing such forms of social agency, we end by briefly discussing a significant strike by Zimbabwean farm workers near Musina. Hundreds of Zimbabwean fruit pickers at Maswiri Boerdery, a citrus farm in Tshipise about 30 kilometers southeast from Musina, went on a 10 day strike in June 2005. Although the result was not necessarily positive for the workers, this example provides insight into the cultural politics of the paternalistic forms of dependency operating on most farms, which are relevant to consider during this conjuncture when these Zimbabweans are highly visible in media and policy discussions and debates.
As Andries du Toit (1993, 1994) has argued, paternalistic discourses are the central modality of power on South African commercial farms (see Moyo, Rutherford, Amanor-Wilks, 2000). However, paternalism is changing as farmers react to increasing pressure from post-apartheid labour legislation and restructuring. Farmers withdraw paternalistic welfare services often on the basis of ‘free market’ principles; for example, whereas it used to be a paternalistic custom for farmers to provide housing and food for their workers, they are now commonly deducted as ‘fees’ from farm worker’s remuneration (Ewert & du Toit, 2005:320). Furthermore, the withdrawal of paternalistic services focuses on the casual or seasonal portion of the workforce, while for permanent and highly skilled workers it is likely paternalistic ‘entitlements’ continue to be provided (Ewert & du Toit, 2005:322). It thus appears that paternalism is not entirely disappearing, but is mixing with neoliberal ‘free market’ logic in various ways.
How paternalism shifts and rearticulates with neo-liberalism is very much a ‘localised’ question; that is to say, in different regions and across specific farms one finds different hybrid formations. The case study of Maswiri Boerdery presents only one discursive formation, with its own particular terrain upon which cultural politics are negotiated. To come to terms with this particularity, we begin our discussion of Maswiri by referring to how Zimbabweans were originally brought onto the farm in 1998.
The Maswiri Boerdery company owns many farms in Limpopo province, but the farm of concern here is called Hayoma. This is a large citrus and vegetable farm that employs over 1,000 workers during picking season, most of whom are now Zimbabwean, although a smaller portion of the work force is drawn from neighbouring Venda communities. Zimbabwean migrants were employed at the Hayoma in 1998 after 400 or so South African workers – the vast majority of whom were Venda labour tenants – had been dismissed following strike actions which had allegedly not followed proper procedures (Lahiff, 1997:39). While most of the South Africans were able to keep their homes on the farm land, a Zimbabwean farm worker recounted that at least 500 Zimbabwean migrants were recruited and brought to the farm in large trucks to replace the dismissed workers. Most of these Zimbabweans were employed as seasonal fruit pickers and were initially housed in the barn where cattle feed was stored (Lahiff, 1997:38).
The June 2005 strike related to form of payment for citrus pickers. Before 2005, pickers were paid according to a ‘punch card system’ whereby each picker carried an individual card that was hole-punched by foremen for each bag of oranges dumped in the trailer. In 2005, the piece rate for each bag was 28 cents. Pickers submitted their card at the end of the day to the foreman, and received payment once a month for the number of bags accounted for on the cards.
Yet in May 2005, the punch-card system was replaced by a technologically-intensive ‘computer-tag system’. This latter system required pickers to carry a small electronic tag and, after dumping a bag of oranges in the trailer, to press the tag against a scanner attached to the trailer, which was supposed to record electronically the picker’s bag count. This change constituted a major disruption of the particular paternalistic power relations. Many of the striking pickers had worked on the farm previous seasons and said they were ‘cheated’ by the new system, earning less than previous years.
One observed, ‘The system before the computer allowed us to see what we had done, to check our counts with the boss.’ Other pickers said the computer technology was faulty; sometimes the scanner and tag did not function properly and consequently bags dumped in the trailer would go unrecorded. For many pickers, the faulty technology meant they received less pay than under the more transparent punchcard system. Although they were only being paid only 28 cents per bag, they said they earned more with punch cards than the 300 Rand per month they were receiving on average under the computer-tag system. The former system enabled pickers to monitor their own counts and compare them with management. When the computer-tag system was imposed, the sense of oversight was denied and amounted to a moral affront.
The combination of feeling cheated and the existing low pay scale erupted into a strike on 23 June 2005. Hundreds of pickers went out to the field but refused the directives of their foremen to start work, demanding a meeting with the manager regarding payment. When that did not materialise, the pickers left the field and marched towards the compound in a demonstration.
After more than a week of sometimes tense negotiations between management and the workers, with an Nkuzi official acting as an advocate for the strikers an agreement was reached. The striking workers received their final pay and were dismissed. Many of these workers sought work elsewhere in South Africa, with some receiving employment back at Maswiri while others were black-listed. Conditions improved slightly as the piece-work system was replaced by part-time hourly wages as stipulated by the sectoral determination for farm worker wages. Under the new arrangement, pickers were guaranteed to receive at least 430 Rand per month if, that is, they maintained a 13 bag per-hour ‘standard of production’ in order to qualify for the hourly wage. Thus the new hourly wage system retained aspects of a piece-work regime.
Although we cannot examine the strike in detail here (see Addison, 2006:91-108), this example shows that despite their multiple vulnerabilities Zimbabwean farm workers sought to improve their income possibilities. While the on-farm power relations coupled with the ambivalent legal status of most workers clearly enforced the authority of the farmer, it also entailed mutual obligations (du Toit, 1993:320). Although the farmer expects deference and loyalty, workers could make certain claims, producing a site of cultural politics. Importantly, these claims are not understood as unalienable rights, but they constitute provisional claims over areas that are of most importance to workers. The pickers staked a provisional claim over the punch-card system, arguably because it determined the pace of work and indirectly determined how much money they earned under piece-work. Such regimes of payment are crucial because they often embody both paternalistic and class dimensions of power. They can enable some control over the production process, (often through paternalistic claims) but also have a direct relationship in determining wages and hence the livelihoods of farm workers. Regimes of payment thus represent a terrain of intersection between paternalistic entitlement and the social reproduction of workers.
Conclusion
We welcome the increased visibility for Zimbabwean farm workers in northern Limpopo province. The emphasis on human rights abuses and the limited laws and improperly implemented regulations have drawn attention to the often grim working conditions and point to forms of redress through the institutional channels of the state and its interlocutors. Although we recognise the attraction of appealing to ‘the state’ and its sovereignty and laws, we are also cautious about the effects of such appeals if they do not also engage with the political economy and the practices within the particular ‘crucible’ of this locality shaping the livelihoods of these Zimbabweans.
By examining some of the livelihood strategies of the Zimbabweans working on the farms in northern Limpopo, it is clear that enforcing the laws will not necessarily deter their migration or improve their conditions. Changes in the political economy of agriculture in South Africa and of the ‘meltdown’ of the national economy in Zimbabwe suggest that standard solutions will not suffice – that these Zimbabweans working on northern South African farms are part of the transnational livelihood practices and rural struggles, including the different struggles for land in both countries. By recognising and analysing some of ‘the contradictory sources and impulses’ of them we proffer a few points that ‘can inform a realistic and political responsible assessment’ (Bernstein, 2007:49). As these Zimbabweans are largely jumping the border for their own survival and that of their dependants, and given that the conditions for their reproduction of labour are extremely difficult in Zimbabwe, their desperation will ensure that they continue to cross the Limpopo to escape the ‘jail’ of Zimbabwe. White commercial farmers are not the only ones taking advantage of their desperation in South Africa (SPT, 2004), let alone elsewhere
(McGregor, forthcoming). Moreover, commercial farmers seek to maximise their profitability in a neo-liberal environment in agriculture – an environment that the ANC government has established. Any state interventions and laws will not only be informed by this larger political economy but also will be shaped by the history of this zone of exception towards Zimbabwean farm workers in the far north, suggesting that the emphasis will most likely not be interested in the well-being of workers – South African, Zimbabwean or any other nationality. The strike action centered on regimes of payment in our brief example suggests that there can be a terrain of mobilization, but it would need a more systematic effort on the part of civic groups and others than occurred on Maswiri farm in 2005 to link it to wider ‘politics of possibility’ that can link these farm workers to others who are struggling in South Africa and the wider region. Such a task entails going beyond the visibility of the Zimbabweans as victims – or in xenophobic instances, of job-stealers or worse – and addressing some of their own capabilities, linkages, and networks and limitations as they engage in struggles for livelihoods in South Africa and Zimbabwe. We have shown that analyzing the changing dynamics of agrarian political economy in northern South Africa highlights the importance of examining a broad set of issues that cut across rural political economy and resistance to neo-liberalism from what are particularly vulnerable groups of workers.