Western Cape fresh flower, fruit and wine producer, Oak Valley Farm, an iconic tourist attraction and leading supplier to retail chain Woolworths, remains in the grip of a three-month strike over alleged discrimination tactics allegedly affecting black people only.
In a statement sent to FTW Online, Rekang Jankie of the Commercial, Stevedoring, Agriculture and Allied Workers Union (Csaawu) said the strike “over wages, housing and labour brokers carries on due to attempts by the bosses to negotiate in bad faith”.
Elaborating on the union’s grievances, Jankie said “for many years the farm allowed coloured and white workers to stay with their families on the farm”.
In comparison, “black-African workers were put in single-sex hostels and their families were not allowed. After a long series of fruitless negotiations with the farm, the union referred the single-sex hostels to the Equality Court because we believe it is a violation of human dignity, discriminatory and racist”.
Jankie stressed that Csaawu wanted a minimum salary of R250 per day for their workers, an end to labour broking, equal employment opportunities, an end to single-sex hostels, and opportunities for all workers and their families to stay on the farm.
The court is expected to hear the matter on Friday, 5 July.
