DURBAN - The Food and Allied Workers Union (FAWU) has announced that their members will down tools from today.
The uninion has said in a statement that progress in the economy and transformation in agriculture is talked about daily, however, conditions of employment, particularly wages, health and safety are largely neglected and no benefits.
The Port Shepstone branch of FAWU said that they are concerned with the unhealthy conditions to which many farm workers are subjected to.
The statement read, "The inaccessibility of government basic services to farm workers is making a mockery of our 23 year old democracy. The continued denial of access to justice, safety, labour unions and security poses a challenge on the constitutional proclamation of equality for all citizens. It necessitates that new effort has to be made by labour, justice and safety and security departments in order to extend freedom to farm workers as well."
FAWU said that the plight of farm workers is dependent upon interdepartmental efforts by land affairs, health, education, labour, home affairs etc.
According to the statement, it is alleged that this emanated from the recent incident where workers were denied by the employer to get reasonable demands on wages and other conditions of employment.
The statement continued, "Now the workers after failure of CCMA to solve the problem on mediation they are going on strike, the strike will start on the 11th of September 2017 at Roivaal farm D121 Harding. Kindly be informed that on behalf of employees at your company, across all farms, FAWU hereby give a written notice of their intention to embark on an industrial action by way of withdrawing their labour in compliance with the provisions of Section 64 (1) (b) of the Labour Relation Act 1995 as amended. Further, take notice that the strike action will commence any time or day after 48 hours of this notice, this industrial action, which is in support of employees’ demands, will be effective from."