Farmers Strike Back against Insurgent Farmworkers movement

first published in Groundup 

by Benjamin Fogel and Jeanne Hefez

Cancellation of a planned march by the farmworkers coalition against alleged intimidation by farmers has led to claims that the City of Cape Town is complicit in undermining the new R105 minimum wage.

In the backdrop of the scheduled minimum wage increase in the agricultural sector for farmworkers, a planned mass march to Parliament has been blocked by the City of Cape Town, according to the Farmworkers Strike Coalition. According to Karel Swarts of the Strike Coalition, the coalition is “devastated about the refusal to march and the decision is clearly based on politics, which we cannot accept in the new South Africa”. However, according to the Cape Times, the City claims that the coalition postponed the march on its own terms.

Police Brutality in the new South Africa

first published in the Zambizian

The police in South Africa have taken yet another life, this time that of a 27 year old Mozambican Taxi Driver in Daveyton a neighbourhood in East Johannesburg . Mido Marcia was killed for parking on the wrong side of the road and having the guts to challenge the officer attempting to arrest him. For this he was handcuffed to the back of a police truck and dragged several hundred meters down the road in front of a crowd amassed at a taxi rank. Later it seems like he was beaten to death by police officers in a cell in a two hour assault.

In his death, but not through any deed of his own he joins the ranks of those recently slain by the police beginning with Andries Tatane in Ficksburg a few years ago and that of Mambush- or the man with the Green Blanket as he has become known in popular representations.

Despite some truly despicable police spin, there was evidence that would not go away, in this case the initial incident was caught on film and handed to the Daily Sun a mass circulation tabloid who exposed the footage which has since gone ‘viral’.

‘Blacklisted’ Farmworker urges politicians to listen

Despite going from being a scab to striking worker and being recently unemployed, Jaurie Scheepers remains hopeful. “My God will make a plan for me”.

from the mail and guardian a few weeks back

He is in his late 30s and has been living in the De Doorns Stofland informal settlement for five years with his wife and two children. Since he lost his job, he has been worried about feeding them.

At the beginning of the farmworkers’s strike, Scheepers was a scab. But later, after having actively participated in the strike, he is now unable to work. He says he has been blacklisted by local farmers because he regularly spoke to the media.