Farmworker organisation lauds Labour Court finding in unfair dismissal case

A farmworker activist organisation has welcomed the Western Cape Labour Court ruling to refer a matter back to the CCMA for a worker to be reinstated after an unfair dismissal.

The Labour Court ruled earlier this week that the matter concerning farmworker Claudine van Wyk, who worked on Paarl wine farm Leeuwenkuil Family Vineyards (W&E Dreyer Boerdery), be heard afresh by a new arbitrator.

This, after Van Wyk was fired for speaking and showing her payslip to to a Swedish magazine on the working conditions in South Africa. The arbitrator found her dismissal to be procedurally and substantively fair, however, the Labour Court found the commissioner committed a gross irregularity in the conduct of proceedings.

Women on Farms project co-director Carmen Louw said the matter placed the spotlight on farmworkers and their working conditions.

Numerous attempts to get comment from the farm were unsuccessful by deadline on Thursday.

“Any worker has the right to engage with journalists,” Louw said.

“The workers we work with do it all the time and it is their right and its very important because more than 50% of agricultural produce are exported.

“So, workers have the right to lobby international consumers around their conditions and it seems the only time producers, landowners and producer bodies act is when there is international exposure of the gross violations that happen on the farm.

“In terms of this particular case, it seems the worker showed her payslip, so what she was saying was verified with actual documents, and it also seems to be that there was a misrepresentation of employment facts (by the journalist),” said Louw.

She said the matter of farmworker wages needed to be highlighted.

“In terms of the CCMA, many workers complain they are not fairly arbitrated or adhered to with CCMA commissioners and this case proves the commissioner was not fair in adjudicating the matter of the farmworker.

“When there is international lobbying and advocacy there will be losses, but those losses are nothing compared to what the minimum wage a worker earns or the violations that a worker endures. It is incomparable,” said Louw.

The article, published in Swedish magazine Arbetet, titled “Farm Workers Paying the Price for Cheap South African Wine’, was accompanied by a photograph of Van Wyk holding a payslip showing that she earned only R684 (a week).

According to the judgment, the content of the article seemed to “somewhat create the impression that Van Wyk was not being paid in accordance with the required statutory minimum wage applicable at that time” as a contract general farmworker during the 2019 harvesting period.

Cape Times