For many more, it's a harvest of misery. A Danish documentary reveals apartheid-like conditions in SA’s wine industry, writes Koketso Moeti.
South Africa is a country of many divisions, most of them underpinned by economic inequality. And the story of inequality is often presented in a one-sided way, almost as if it’s a given. As if the walls between us built themselves and no one benefits and actively works to keep them in place.
Think of the National Planning Commission’s diagnostic report video, which explains its function by telling the story of a girl named Thandi.
Focused on Thandi, the story shows us the hurdles faced by black children, particularly a black girl, from birth, and the trajectory our lives often take based on that.
What the video failed to show was the story of George Smith, a white boy whose trajectory, while different from Thandi’s, is interlinked. George symbolises even children whose average use of money per month can exceed that of the wage of the lowest paid worker in some of our biggest companies.
These are people not born with innate abilities that help them make it, but rather a class of people whose excess comes directly off the back of the Thandis of South Africa.
I found myself thinking of this when Rand Merchant Bank’s WineX, which describes itself as “the premier public event on SA’s national wine calendar”, kicked off in Sandton a month ago.
Sandton is, of course, the heart of affluence, home to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and one of the largest convention centres on the continent. It's also said to be home to the “richest square mile on the continent”.
Many kilometres from Sandton, the strike of Robertson Winery’s workers was, at the time, entering its ninth week. The strike finally ended on Wednesday this week.
In August, workers at the winery embarked on a strike demanding an R8 500 minimum wage. They also called for an independent committee to be set up to monitor the conditions in which farm workers labour. What brought the two worlds together is that while workers called for the public to boycott the winery, WineX provided them with a platform to share their wines made from what is publicly known as exploitation.
There has, however, been a public backlash against Robertson after claims that workers are earning R3 000.
Attention was drawn to this especially after Denmark’s biggest supermarket chain pulled South African wines off its shelves. That decision followed a documentary aired on national television in that country about workers' conditions.
Bitter Grapes: Slavery in the Vineyards - made by Danish film-maker Tom Heinemann - revealed apartheid-like conditions under which farm workers work 12-hour shifts, for, it was claimed, as little as R100.
That now, of course, contradicts the proposed national minimum wage announced by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday after Nedlac negotiations.
It has been reported that Heinemann arranged an interview with Robertson Winery to ask about the working conditions. But when he arrived, reported Kenworthy News Media in Denmark, cellar master Bowen Botha and export director Geoff Harvey refused to be interviewed.
When Heinemann repeated the offer so that the winery could explain its side of the story and extended his hand, either Botha or Harvey was caught on tape telling him: “I don’t want to shake your filthy hand. You are a disgusting piece of rubbish.”
WineX festival director Michael Fridjhon, meanwhile, reportedly said: “The existing wage structure is what is called a living wage in South Africa” and “is not by any means below the ethically stated level required”.
The “ethically stated level” to which he refers is about R3 000 in a country where, according to Pietermaritzburg Agency for Community Social Action, it costs R3 027 a month to feed a family of five with a nutritionally complete diet. Let us be clear, however: this excludes other needs such as education, toiletries, transportation and a number of basic things human beings need to live a dignified life.
Elsewhere in the world, as in Denmark, people are refusing to endorse exploitation, yet many companies in South Africa are unable to do the same and continue to give those accumulating wealth through exploitation huge platforms such as that festival.
It's a slap in the face of workers who have called on the public to support their cause and is, to many, a tacit endorsement of exploitation.
Robertson Winery says it is “saddened” that its wages have been called “slave wages”, rather than being saddened that it may well be condemning generations to a life of poverty.
The response from WineX and Robertson Winery reminds us why it is important to tell the story of the Thandis of South Africa alongside the story of George.
The ecosystem of inequality must be laid bare, showing both those whose lives pay the price of inequality and those who benefit and keep it propped up with their silent endorsements of exploitation.
* Koketso Moeti is a campaigner for Amandla.mobi, an independent, community advocacy organisation that seeks to build a more just and people-powered South Africa. Follow her on Twitter @Kmoeti or see www.amandla.mobi
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
The Star