LABOUR RIGHTS VIOLATIONS THREATEN WORKERS, COMMUNITIES AND FOOD SECURITY

 In C19PC Statements

Dear Members of the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs

 

LABOUR RIGHTS VIOLATIONS THREATEN WORKERS, COMMUNITIES AND FOOD SECURITY

 

Executive Summary

 Members of the C19 People’s Coalition bring to your attention a number of labour rights and human rights violations brought to our attention during this lockdown period, concerning essential services workers and other members of communities in peri-urban and rural areas, which threaten impact of our broader food security. We identify and discuss our concerns, make recommendations, and ask specifically that committee members meet directly with us and other stakeholders to discuss them. For your ease of reference, we include here our recommendations for redress; the details regarding each concern follow in the discussion following this summary. We are calling for:

  • The Committee to seek a briefing from the South African Human Rights Commission and the Department of Employment and Labour regarding the general concerns, as well as on the specific instances of labour rights and human rights abuses, which cannot be allowed to continue.
  • The Committee to investigate these issues and seek to put in place urgent measures for amelioration to secure labour rights and improve food security.
  • Concerted intergovernmental efforts to attend to hotspot areas in the Western Cape, Gauteng Province and KwaZulu-Natal.
  • Employees to be compensated by UIF when screened and placed in quarantine
  • Covid-19 Injury on Duty protocols to be put in place for people who become infected while performing essential services.
  • Danger pay for people who are doing essential services.
  • Exhortation of companies to provide measures to secure people’s safety from when they leave home to work and return again, in line with occupational health safety regulations.
  • Urgent provision of special Covid-19 occupational health regulations in the medium term, via a public participation process .
  • Provision stipulates for quarantine facilities in communities with crowded living conditions to prevent essential services workers infected at work returning home to spread infection to their families and communities; workplaces and municipalities to partner for this.
  • Provision of clear protocols for workers returning to work after quarantine for employers, employees and communities to observe, drafted in consultation with the departments of Labour and Health, and including stipulation that such workers be allowed to resume their jobs without hindrance by employers.
  • Stipulation to employers not to hinder or prevent essential services workers travelling to town to shop for food and supplies during the day, taking into account restrictions of transport hours and occupancy, as well clear guideline for such workers to follow to protect others in the workplace workers (provision of transport by employers, if possible, sanitization use of masks and other safety measures).
  • Mandatory free, daily screening in the workplace for workers must be supplied by employers.
  • Stipulation that schools not to be reopened in hotspot areas.
  • Direct engagement by relevant government offices with community leaders and communities to allay their fears and receive their proposals supporting their survival and needs under lockdown to contain the spread of the virus, especially in epicentres; public participation for rapid response action will ensure cooperation with regulations by communities to prevent strikes and marches that may lead to conflict, violence, death, injuries and spread of the virus via such physical contact.

 

We, members of the Peri-urban/Rural Needs Working Group of the C19 People’s Coalition listed below, note with extreme concern a number of labour rights and human rights violations which have been brought to our attention during this lockdown period. Essential services workers lives are put at risk because of the lack of workplace safety measures. We bring these issues to your attention and advocate that they must be addressed urgently because they threaten the lives of essential services workers and other members of communities, and, in turn, broader food security. In this letter, we identify and discuss our concerns, make recommendations, and ask specifically that the Portfolio Committee on COGTA meet directly with us and all other concerned stakeholders to discuss these and any other arising issues.

People living in rural and peri-urban areas are impacted in different ways than people living in urban areas. In many ways, the lockdown regulations have impacted more greatly people living in poverty in rural and peri-urban areas than in urban areas. We call upon the Ad-Hoc Committee on Covid-19 to investigate the issues we highlight below and to ensure that those mandated with decision-making and implementation powers urgently act to put a stop to these workplace abuses endangering worker’s lives and which put farms, pack houses, agro-processing plants and food retailers at risk of being closed due to Covid-19 infection. While we present here the direct experiences of those affected in the Western Cape, we note, that it is likely that these issues apply across the board to rural communities in all nine provinces.

On several Western Cape farms, in pack houses and in food retailers, essential services workers’ rights are being abrogated. On 28 April, the Department of Employment and Labour issued a directive giving clear guidance on mandatory safety measures that employers need to put in place to protect employees from risk of exposure to Covid-19. This directive, coming over a month after lockdown commenced, has, in the interim, endangered people in the workplace, as well, many workplaces are continuing to ignore worker’s rights and concerns that they raise with management.

Issues that the C19 People’s Coalition is aware of include workplaces that do not have basic safety measures in place; for example, essential services employees working without masks, gloves, hand sanitizer or physical distancing protocols in the workplace. There are workplace practices that place workers’ health at risk; for example, in shops, cashiers must handle customers’ cards and there are several accounts of cashiers not being provided with hand sanitizer or materials to disinfect consoles. Further, use of poisons during food production and exposure to very cold work environments in pack houses place workers at risk of lung infections. Undocumented labourers are particularly vulnerable to workplace abuses; for example, farms employing asylum seekers and migrants at lower wages and with less safety measures in place.

Workers are being laid off without pay or forced to take annual leave during lockdown. Many seasonal workers have not had their contracts renewed; with no work or income to sustain them, seasonal workers are looking to make use of the provision of once-off movement in the latest lockdown regulations to travel to seek work in other provinces or municipal areas. This poor treatment of precariously employed casual workers now means the risk of infection spreading from hotspot areas to other rural areas with comparatively lower levels of infection. In addition, domestic workers on farms are subject to poor labour rights practices, such as not being registered for UIF. Some workplaces opt to have their own medical arrangements for staff; however, an issue emerging is that medical staff, at factories, for example, are refusing to screen workers due to fear of possible infection (possibly related to the lack of safety regulations noted above) and the responsibility is shifted to the supervisors, or workers are simply not being screened at all.

It has also come to our attention that farm gates are being locked preventing people living on farms to get to town to do food shopping. Restrictions in transport hours and occupancy is leaving people stranded without transport in the middle of the day and unable to travel to buy food, because the regulations assume only essential services workers need to travel; but the regulations fail to take into account that all people need public transport to access grocery shops. Centralized food supply via large retailers means that informal traders and spaza shops were initially restricted from trading; as a result this source of food has been interrupted for many living in informal settlements in rural areas and has not recovered properly since easing of the restriction. Many people in rural areas are living in extreme hunger as food parcels get distributed relatively slowly in informal settlements in remote rural areas compared to those in urban areas.

When essential services workers test positive for Covid-19 in work conditions without proper distancing protocols, the other employees working in close proximity to them are not tested or isolated. Contact tracing and testing is reported as being slow and essential services workers return home, placing their families and surrounding communities at risk. Workplaces are not applying for the UIF Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme on behalf of workers who need to self-isolate to wait out the required period in which the virus might be incubating.

We have also received upsetting reports of a worker who was dismissed from work and chased away “like a dog” after returning to the food canning factory in Tulbagh which she has worked for the past 14 years; even though she had an official letter from the clinic clearing her to return to work after completing her quarantine and passing the required test, she was screamed at and told not to return. The factory management claims that it requires her to go for further testing before she can return and that the clinic form is not sufficient. The community members marched peacefully until stopped by the police following this incident and asked for a shutdown of the factory at which a death caused by Covid-19 is still being investigated, and after which screenings of workers took place. The community is concerned not only for the factory workers but the entire community.

The factory itself is now trying to communicate with the Department of Health. It evident that there is no clear information on the safety protocols for workers, testing, self-isolation, clearing for return to work and continued employment for returning workers, let alone workers being communicated with in a manner that preserves their dignity. Furthermore, the community leaders have complained that efforts to interact with the government, in particular, the office of the Premier of the Western Cape, in this case, is falling on deaf ears, and they are being excluded from and not consulted over any arrangements to ensure the safety and survival of workers and the communities in the Witzenberg epicentre region of the Western Cape. The community leaders at this epicentre have also expressed that there is a lot of anxieties about schools opening and their children returning to the classroom, but that no one from the government will engage them on this and other issues of great concern which cause fear in all living in this hotspot area.

The Western Cape, in particular, could face a dramatic escalation in infections if it does not fully acknowledge and address these, and possibly other, issues in hotspot areas in the Western Cape, including: the Central Karoo District Municipality, the West Coast District Municipality Cape, the Winelands District Municipality, the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality and the Garden Route District Municipality. The Witzenberg area has infection numbers that are on a par with numbers in suburbs, and we have received urgent requests to help with the above workplace related issues, as well as for food, PPE and health care support, including testing and spaces in which to house those requiring self-isolation for the mandatory period. Gauteng Province has been identified as another infection hotspot and it is likely, that the same will apply there, followed by KwaZulu-Natal too, as there is more travel to a from rural areas with level 4 lockdown, and as seasonal workers move to other areas, including other provinces and towns and cities to look for work.

We emphasize that most people want to work because they need an income. However, there is an urgent need for implementation of better Occupational Health Safety regulations in collaboration between the Department of Employment and Labour and the Department of Health, better enforcement of the existing regulations, and amendments where needed. Management in workplaces providing essential services must respect the law when it comes to upholding labour rights and human rights.

 

We therefore call for:

 

  • The Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs to seek a briefing from the South African Human Rights Commission and the Department of Employment and Labour regarding the general concerns, raised above, as well as on the specific instances of labour rights and human rights abuses, which cannot be allowed to continue.
  • The Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs to investigate these issues and seek to put in place urgent measures for amelioration to secure labour rights and improve food security.
  • Concerted intergovernmental efforts to attend to hotspot areas in the Western Cape, Gauteng Province and KwaZulu-Natal.
  • Employees to be compensated by UIF when screened and placed in quarantine.
  • Covid-19 Injury on Duty protocols to be put in place for people who become infected while performing essential services.
  • Danger pay for people who are doing essential services; while there is no amount of money that can replace people’s lives, people must be compensated for the fact that they are putting their lives at risk to secure food for others, and their families should be able to benefit from this kind of compensation too.
  • Companies must provide measures to secure people’s safety from when they leave home to work and return again. These measures must be in line with occupational health safety regulations.
  • Special Covid-19 occupational health regulations are required in the medium term. We advocate that these regulations be urgently drafted and put through a public participation process.
  • Provision needs to be made for quarantine facilities, as many communities live in densely populated circumstances. To return an essential services worker who becomes infected at work back home, not only places their family’s health at risk, but also that of the community in which they live. Workplaces and municipalities must partner to ensure that quarantine facilities are put in place for persons who cannot quarantine in overcrowded home circumstances.
  • That clear protocols for return to work after quarantine be made available to employers, employees and communities, in consultation with the departments of Labour and Health; and that workers cleared to return to work after quarantine be allowed to resume their jobs without hindrance by employers.
  • The practice of certain workplaces hindering and preventing essential services workers travelling to town to shop for food and supplies during the day time must be addressed; this especially pertains to restriction of transport hours and occupancy. Simultaneously, if workers go to town, others in the workplace need to be protected; employers in a position to support workers with transport and safety measures should do so.
  • Daily screening is mandatory in the workplace. This regular testing must be instituted and checked and tests must be made available free of charge to workers.
  • Schools should not to be reopened in hotspot areas.
  • The government, in particular those offices mandated to deal with Covid-19 liaise with community leaders and communities directly to allay fears, receive proposals for arrangements to support their survival under lockdown and contain the spread of the virus. This is especially crucial in hotspot areas with communities experiencing added or extreme stress. Public participation should be considered as part of a rapid response action, to include community voices via community leaders, as they serve as a vital link with people of the ground in the community; this can ensure cooperation with critical adherence to guidelines to prevent spread and prevent community actions such as strikes and peaceful marches that may lead to conflict, violence, death, injuries and spread of the virus via physical contact.

 

We note that as lockdown is gradually eased in the risk adjusted approach of proceeding to lower alert levels, ensuring that occupational health safety measures are adhered to in all workplaces becomes even more critical. When workplaces in rural and peri-urban spaces shut due to avoidable reasons such as employers and management failing to institute occupational health safety measures, this endangers everyone’s food safety. We believe that the measures above, and possibly more as you open up the matter to investigation and oversight, will contribute to improved food security and rights realization. People’s rights must be protected. While we accept the need to contain the public health crisis and the spreading of infection, the implementation of Covid-19 regulations must not threaten people’s rights. Labour rights and primary human rights, such as access to food and water must, be protected.

 

The C19 People’s Coalition avails itself to the Portfolio Committee on GOGTA to meet with all other relevant stakeholders to discuss this submission.

Endorsed by the following members and Working Groups of the C19 People’s Coalition:

  1. Roshila Nair (People Against Apartheid and Fascism-PAAF)
  2. Naomi Betana (Witzenberg Justice Coalition)
  3. Minhaj Jeenah (Fighting Inequality Alliance)
  4. Lorna Huston (Huston Initiatives)
  5. Antonia Michaela Porter
  6. Julekha Latib (One Voice of All Hawkers Association)
  7. Shaeera Kalla (The Mbegu Platform)
  8. Lorraine Heunis (Let’s Speakout)
  9. Sybil Nandi Msezane (Queer Feminist Activist, The Fruit Basket NPC)
  10. Kirsten Pearson (Budget Justice Coalition)
  11. Tara Appalraju
  12. Mohammed Jameel Abdulla

 

TheC19 People’s Coalitionwas established in March 2020, and includes 290 organizations from across civil society in all provinces, including community-based organizations, social movements, non-governmental organizations, research institutions, faith-based organizations and others. It is the broadest grouping of civil society organizations that has come together to address the current Covid-19 crisis for the period of lockdown and beyond, with its primary aim to support the most vulnerable communities and peoples affected by the lockdown and pandemic in various ways. Read our  Programme of Action (POA).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT THESE COALITION MEMBERS:

Naomi Betana, Witzenberg Justice Coalition: 073 528 6090, fight4waterjustice@gmail.com

Roshila Nair, People Against Apartheid and Fascism: 064 877 0434, NRXROS001@gmail.com

Minhaj Jeenah, Fighting Inequality Alliance: 072 456 7260, Jeenahminhaj@gmail.com

 

 

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