Cosatu condemns alleged assault - 13-01-2006

 

COSATU condemns alleged assault

The Congress of South African Trade Unions is shocked at yet another alleged assault on a farm worker by his employer. According to the Sowetan of 13 January 2006, farmer Johan van Eeden allegedly assaulted Petrus Seoka, who worked on his farm, after he had asked about late payment of money. Seoka so badly injured that he only remembers waking up in hospital in Ventersdorp with stitches in his eye.

COSATU is also disturbed that when Seoka went to Ventersdorp Police Station, two days after he had given police an interview from his hospital bed, the case docket was missing. According to the Sowetan, this is not the first time that this has happened in similar cases in this area which it has reported.

Local councillor Velili Patu told the Sowetan that "it was common for assault cases against farm labourers to go unreported" and that "if anything is reported the dockets disappear. We have a problem of farmers who beat up their black employees and get away with it. Some labourers are paid to keep quite or are afraid to report cases for fear of being evicted along with their families."

If this is true then it confirms COSATU's view that labour relations on many farms are no better than in the days of apartheid, and that employers are flouting the law with impunity. It demonstrates that far from needing weaker labour laws we need far stronger laws and more effective implementation of the existing laws, in order to give workers the protection they should be guaranteed by law.

It is totally unacceptable that employers can still get away with treating workers no better than slaves. We demand a full top-level investigation by the police and Department of Labour into this and other cases that the Sowetan has reported involving Johan van Eeden, for charges to be brought and for the severest penalties to be imposed on those found guilty.

COSATU and its affiliate FAWU will be intensifying their recruitment campaign in the farming sector, so that workers can have the strength of the union movement behind them and fight back against employers who deny workers their legal rights, pay poverty wages and get away with breaking the law.

Patrick Craven (Editor, Shopsteward Journal)

Congress of South African Trade Unions

1-5 Leyds Cnr Biccard Streets

Braamfontein, 2017

P.O.Box 1019

Johannesburg, 2000

South Africa

Tel: +27 11 339-4911/24

Fax: +27 11 339-5080/6940

E-Mail: patrick@cosatu.org.za