Farm Workers’ Forum at the WSF, Nairobi2007

As part of using the WSF meeting in Nairobi as a space to build unions and social movements, the Southern Africa farm-worker network will be hosting a forum of farm-worker organisations at the WSF. Ighsaan Schroeder* looks at the background and the aims of the forum.

Background

Farm workers have long been among the most exploited and the most vulnerable of all workers. The link between the employment relationship, housing, health and often also education, have invariably cast farm workers in master-slave relations with farmers. This has left them open to extreme levels of abuse, including slave wages, hazardous and harsh working conditions, appalling living conditions and subject to arbitrary acts of violence and racist abuse by farmers. These conditions have made the task of organising farm workers very difficult.

The effects of globalisation on agriculture, specifically the cuts in subsidies and the export focus of the structural adjustment programmes, reinforced by agricultural trade liberalisation, have resulted in greater emphasis on competitiveness and cost considerations, which in turn have led to changes in crops grown or even types of farming, increased farm size, and greater mechanisation.

In some cases these changes have been forced on farmers as a consequence of cheaper Northern imports, which in some countries have completely destroyed local agricultural production. The results for farm workers have been massive job loss and growing casualisation of work. The social consequences have been a very big drop in the living standards of farm workers and their families, with significantly higher levels of poverty and starvation, increased levels of social dislocation, with more and more farm workers ending up in rural informal settlements or migrating into the cities or surrounding countries in search of a livelihood. This section of the working class is also particularly susceptible to the ravages of the HIV/ AIDS pandemic.

Farm worker unions have been searching for new ways to respond to these pressures. One such initiative was a coming together of Southern African farm worker unions and support organisations in Harare in 2001. The purpose of the meeting was for organisations to compare experiences of the issues confronting farm workers, and how best to respond to these. The meeting viewed this exchange of experience as critical to future success and agreed to set up a network that would meet on an on- going basis. Due to financial difficulties they did not meet again until 2004, at a workshop organised by Khanya College, a Johannesburg-based NGO working specifically with vulnerable workers such as farm workers, casual workers and informal sector workers.

Since the 2004 meeting the farmworker organisations have continued to build links among each other, and a number of initiatives have borne fruit. The one is a booklet produced by Khanya College on farmworker conditions in the region, and the other is the setting up of a forum of the farmworker organisations to conduct joint negotiations between them and the South African multi-national, Ilovo.

Farm Workers’ Forum at the World SocialForum in Nairobi

As part of the continuing efforts to forge solidarity in the Southern Africa region, at the meeting of the network held in Johannesburg in November

2006, the organisations decided to host a forum during the WSF in Nairobi to look specifically at the position of farm workers in Africa. The forum would be organised under the theme: The Right to Food, Healthcare, Education & Decent Work.

The Southern African farm worker network, the Kenyan farm workers union and the Swiss Labour Assistance will host the Forum jointly.

The latter organisation has assisted Khanya College in hosting the network in 2004 and gives on-going support for the network’s activities.

Aims of the Forum is to

• provide the farmworker organisations with on opportunity to share their experiences and learn from each other

• share strategies that will improve their ability to respond to the problems facing farm workers

• lay the basis for possible closer co-operation and solidarity links between a significant number of farm worker organisations

• draw attention to the position of farm workers before a significant audience, including repre- sentatives of social movements involved in anti- globalisation struggles. This will hopefully lay the basis for the building of solidarity linkages between farm worker trade unions and also between farm worker trade unions and broader social movements.
• The Activities of the Forum

The forum will engage in a number of activities in Nairobi. These will consist of (i) hosting a panel discussion, (ii) of a meeting of farm worker trade unions to discuss prospects for greater co-operation and solidarity and (iii) production of a publication after the WSF that captures the discussions of

the panel and the decisions of the meeting, as a contribution towards possible closer co-operation.

(i) the Panel Discussion

The Forum will host a panel discussion looking at 2 issues. The first issue will be a look at the changes wrought by agricultural liberalisation and their impact on farm workers, with a focus on organising implications and strategies. The second issue will be that of building solidarity in

the present period. Two approaches will be used as case studies, one will be the experience of the Illovo unions in Southern Africa and the other will be to look at ethical trade initiatives as a form of building solidarity.

(ii) A Meeting of trade Unions

The meeting will be open to all organisations involved in organising or supporting farm workers. Its purpose will be to allow for a discussion on some of the internal organisational difficulties involved in organising farm workers (as opposed to recruitment strategies covered in the panel discussion), how existing organisations of farm workers nationally, regionally and internationally can be strengthened, whether there is a need for closer co-operation between farm worker trade unions, how such greater co-operation can be developed, the forms this could take, the resources needed for closer co-operation and so on.

(iii) A Publication of the Forum Discussions

The publication will summarise the forum panel discussions and the reflections and proposals from the meeting of the organisations. It will act as a record of these discussions but also contribute towards possible closer co-operation between farm worker organisations, and farm worker organisations and social movements.

*Ighsaan Schroeder works at Khanya College and is Coordinator of the Centre for Labour Education and Organising. He is also a member of the Editorial Collective.