Fairtrade Wine in South Africa: Does Fairtrade Labelling Guarantee Social Upgrading for Farmworkers?

Abstract

Fairtrade International (FTI) is an international certificatory body that seeks to restructure market relationships to support marginalised producers. In order to do this, FTI sells certified products at a higher price, allowing for a Fairtrade premium to be provided to the otherwise marginalised producers. In the South African wine industry, FTI has extended its certification to large-scale wine producers, despite the extensive history of exploitation and oppression that has framed the industry in which these producers operate. This article asks if the Fairtrade label provides social upgrading to the farmworkers of these producers. In exploring the experiences of 30 Fairtrade farmworkers across five Fairtrade-certified farms, this article concludes that Fairtrade certification does not guarantee social upgrading. Instead, historical issues of dependency are being perpetuated on some wine farms despite their Fairtrade certification.

Keywords:

• Fairtrade
• wine farms
• South Africa
• social upgrading
• decent work
• dependency

Introduction

The Fairtrade label is intended to assure consumers that the product they are buying has been produced in a fair way. Fairtrade International certifies producers and traders who meet a range of criteria relating to fair treatment of workers and fair trade practices. These producers are then able to sell their products at a higher market price, with a portion of that sale price being allocated towards a Fairtrade premium which is intended to improve worker wages and conditions.¹ In this way, Fairtrade seeks to provide a market-based solution to socio-political issues such as poverty by linking ethics-orientated consumers with producers who provide products which are certified to be fairly sourced and traded.² While the Fairtrade label is most often associated with small-scale producers and cooperatives, in recent years some large-scale commercial farmers have also received certification. A significant example of this extension is that since 2003 it has been possible for South African commercial wine farmers to attain Fairtrade certification.³ The decision to allow such farmers to apply for Fairtrade certification has been a controversial one given the history of exploitation and oppression on South African wine farms.

Beyond the borders of South Africa, others have questioned the operation of the Fairtrade label and warn of the danger that the label may exacerbate rather than address existing inequalities. For example, Christopher Cramer, Deborah Johnston, Carlos Oya and John Sender characterise the Fairtrade Foundation as a ‘multi-billion-pound business’ where executives, who earn 500 times the annual income of the African workers who produce the commodities bearing the Fairtrade label, create standards which assume the homogeneity of smallholder farms in Uganda and Ethiopia.⁴ This assumed homogeneity does not, however, exist in practice, as some ‘smallholders’ hold land that is 20 times the size of the average smallholder farm.⁵ Furthermore, there are significant disparities between the wages of these ‘smallholder’ farmers and their hired labourers, with these disparities being missed by the generic ‘box-ticking’ techniques utilised during Fairtrade auditing processes.⁶ With reference to the extension of the Fairtrade label to tea plantations in Darjeeling, which stand as remnants of colonial labour relations, Sarah Besky asks whether such relations on plantations can ever be ‘fair’.⁷ In practice, the Fairtrade label has been shown to be invisible to the very workers whom they are meant to benefit.⁸ In commenting on certification systems such as Fairtrade, Carlos Oya, Florian Schaefer and Dafni Skalidou explain, through systematic review, that these systems yield limited and mixed evidence of socio-economic outcomes for agricultural producers and wage workers.⁹ It is clear from research into the operation of the Fairtrade label in other contexts that it yields ambiguous results. Our article contributes to this literature by exploring how Fairtrade operates in the South African context and in particular on South African commercial wine farms.

The article reports on research undertaken on five South African Fairtrade wine farms to determine whether or not Fairtrade certification has resulted in the social upgrading of workers. Social upgrading is a concept linked to the ‘decent work’ agenda of the International Labour Organization (ILO).¹⁰ As will be explained below, it is a useful concept in assessing whether or not Fairtrade certification guarantees better living and working conditions for farmworkers. The article begins by explaining the term ‘social upgrading’ and linking it to the idea of fair trade. We then explain the methodology used in the study, followed by a discussion of the results of our research. The discussion explores the awareness of these farmworkers of the Fairtrade status of the farms they work on, thereafter examining their experiences through the analytical lens of the four pillars of social upgrading. The article concludes that the Fairtrade label does not guarantee the social upgrading of farmworkers in the South African wine industry.

Social Upgrading and Fairtrade

The decent work agenda of the ILO was first introduced by the ILO’s director-general during the 1999 International Labour Conference.¹¹ One of its components, social upgrading, is the process through which workers’ access to rights, entitlements and quality of employment is improved.¹² The four pillars of social upgrading are: regular employment, worker rights, social protection and social dialogue.¹³ Social upgrading provides an important additional consideration alongside economic upgrading as an aspect of developmental initiatives. This is particularly important in the South African context where, due to a long history of oppression through colonialism and apartheid rule, economic development has been tied to socio-political factors with the implication that meaningful development requires a holistic engagement of interlinking systemic issues.¹⁴ For this reason, rather than simply assessing whether Fairtrade certification results in better wages for farmworkers (economic upgrading), it is important to consider whether such certification guarantees overall decent working and living conditions, known as social upgrading.

The Fairtrade label has its roots in movements seeking alternatives to free trade as far back as the 1950s. The idea of a label certifying that products were produced in a fair way slowly gained traction and in 1997 Fairtrade International was formed to formalise this certification process.¹⁵ An important function of this organisation has been its certificatory procedures and operating standards. One of its most fundamental standards is that a minimum set price should be paid to producers for their products under the label.¹⁶ Fairtrade seeks to promote development through the restructuring of market-based transactions.¹⁷ Fairtrade International (FTI) seeks to restructure market relationships in a manner that favours marginalised workers, utilising its certificatory standards to source products that are sold at a higher price to produce a premium that goes directly to the marginalised producers.¹⁸ Since 2003, South African commercial wine producers have been able to access Fairtrade certification due to there being very few small-scale and marginalised producers in the South African wine industry.¹⁹ The Fairtrade Foundation explains that most smallholder farmers in South Africa are marginalised in the agricultural sector and own very small plots of farming land while having little access to tools, machinery, water, electricity, capital, credit and education.²⁰ In the case of the South African wine industry, only three smallholder wine producers were able to access the label by 2010 with the overwhelming majority of South African Fairtrade wine being produced by large-scale, predominantly white producers.²¹ As highlighted by Fairtrade Sweden, FTI had hoped that the extension of Fairtrade certification to such farmers could help address pertinent concerns about seasonal labour and very low wages for farmworkers.²² The hope was that even though certification was being given to commercial farmers (rather than the cooperative and small producers usually favoured by Fairtrade), it would still address issues of fairness as it could improve the lives of the farmworkers. As we will show in the next section, farmworkers on South African wine farms have historically had very poor working and living conditions.

Wine Production in South Africa and the Fairtrade Label

When the Dutch East India Company colonised the Cape in 1652, they noted that the area was highly suitable for viticulture and ordered thousands of Vitis vinifera cuttings from France and Germany.²³ With the first wine grapes being pressed in the Cape in 1659, the wine industry has an extensive lineage which is embedded in South African history.²⁴ The South African wine industry, far from being distinct from the country’s history of colonial and apartheid rule, has emblematised issues of racialised oppression.²⁵ Scholars such as Mary Rayner outline two key constants in the history of this industry: the white monopolisation of land and the assistance of the state in creating and maintaining a source of cheap black labour.²⁶ Farmworkers were treated as inferior, with farm owners assuming the right to make decisions on their behalf. Furthermore, on many wine farms the notorious ‘dop system’ was in place whereby alcohol was used as a form of payment in lieu of monetary wages.²⁷ Pamela Scully notes that for much of the 19th century, workers were provided with two quarts of wine per day during the week, sourced from rejected wine made of grape husks, and a single bottle over weekends.²⁸ In elaborating on how farmers manufactured alcoholism among farmworkers, Gavin Williams explains that workers were provided with the first serving of alcohol very early in the morning to develop a ‘craving for the stimulant’ which would be followed by additional servings throughout the day.²⁹ This, among other practices, has led to long-standing problems of alcohol dependency among farmworkers in the Western Cape region.

The fact that large-scale commercial wine producers, who are overwhelmingly white and were historically the drivers of oppression on farms, are now at the core of Fairtrade wine production in South Africa appears to contradict the goals of the Fairtrade movement.³⁰ An examination of this potential contradiction needs to extend beyond the economic implications of the Fairtrade premium to consider the broader question of social upgrading as well, a question which acknowledges that the market environment of South African wine production is interlaced with the country’s racial and political history.

Methodology

This study asks whether the Fairtrade label can provide social upgrading to the workers of the South African wine industry by exploring the experiences of 30 Fairtrade farmworkers who reside and work on five Fairtrade-certified large-scale, commercial wine farms in the Western Cape of South Africa.

A qualitative approach was chosen as it values social meaning as opposed to relying on supposedly value-free data. As this study focuses on the broader social experiences of farmworkers, rather than their economic circumstances alone, a qualitative study enables the researcher to understand the way in which the participants experience their situation as well as the nuanced power dynamics of the farms.

The 30 participants were identified through snowball sampling. From September to October 2020, fieldwork was conducted on five farms in the Cape winelands. This sample size was dependent on the access provided through referral by the trade unions. Eighteen of the workers were men and 12 were women. All of the workers identified as being coloured and (with one exception) communicated in Afrikaans. South African racial discourse has been shaped by distinctions made under apartheid between ‘white’, ‘African’, ‘coloured’ and ‘Indian’, with the ‘coloured’ category referring to a creolised cultural grouping consisting of the descendants of enslaved people, Khoisan people and people of other groups.³¹

To maintain the anonymity of the participants, pseudonyms are used to refer to the respective farmworkers and the farms on which they work are referred to by number and the title of ‘Fairtrade Farm 1’, ‘Fairtrade Farm 2’ and so on. We do not provide the names or detailed descriptions of the farms to further protect the identity of the workers. In addition to the 30 workers, four officials of the Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union were interviewed for this study. Pseudonyms are, however, not used in the case of union officials due to the public nature of their work. Research for this study has been conducted with ethical clearance from the Rhodes University Human Ethics Committee.

Fairtrade Awareness and Transparency

One important finding of our study was that the overwhelming majority of worker participants interviewed for this research were unaware of the Fairtrade certification of the farms on which they work or of their entitlement to a Fairtrade premium.³² This aligns with findings from Indian Fairtrade-certified tea plantations, where workers were also found to be unaware of the benefits to which the Fairtrade premium should entitle them.³³ Although the farmworkers interviewed for our study were all working on farms which had been Fairtrade certified, the meaning and implications of such certification had not been explained to the farmworkers. For example, when Mr Nel was asked if he knew about Fairtrade, he responded ‘Whose Fairtrade? I don’t know about the Fairtrade’.³⁴

Of the 30 farmworker participants interviewed in this study, only Ms Williams understood what Fairtrade referred to, particularly in terms of the requirement of the farm being audited.³⁵ Ms Williams, who had been dismissed from her position, had witnessed the auditing process.³⁶ She argued that auditors are offered a curated presentation from which the daily realities of the farm are excluded, and in which they only interact with workers who are deemed to be unproblematic and easily intimidated:

When they come, when they do audits, the employer will clean. Our bins are cleaned, they are picked up every day and people are forced to clean so that if the auditor comes, they will find everything in [a] good standard. What happens when the auditor comes is that the employer chooses who must talk to the auditor because, for example, me, I will never be called to an auditor because they know that I will tell the honest truth. They take people who they can intimidate, people who know that they shouldn’t expose what is happening.³⁷

It is pertinent to highlight that the certification of Fairtrade farms is provided by FLOCERT, an independent auditing body, rather than by FTI itself.³⁸ After the initial audit is successfully completed, a certificate for the first certification cycle (from year one to year three) is issued for the producers, with year two featuring focused and/or unannounced audits by FLOCERT and with a renewal audit occurring in year three.³⁹ The Fairtrade Foundation explains that the second cycle (covering years four to six) follows a similar process to the first one, and that year seven onwards entails unannounced audits.⁴⁰ For scheduled audits, an audit preparation letter is sent out by the auditor including detailed information regarding the scope of the audit, whereas for unannounced visits this letter is not sent out and the date is decided by FLOCERT.⁴¹ It is also important to note that becoming certified and adopting the label is not without cost; producers and traders must pay for the processes of application such as certification and annual re-certification.⁴² Completed audits involve a report on any detected failures to comply with Fairtrade certification requirements, which the auditor presents during the closing meeting.⁴³ While this is the official auditing process, our attempts to confirm whether the stated process aligns with actual auditing practices on the farms concerned were unsuccessful as the FLOCERT representative contacted for this study declined to be interviewed or to provide further information.

According to Ms Williams, disgruntled Fairtrade workers are prevented from vocalising their perspectives as they are excluded from the group of workers selected to be interviewed by the auditor. Ms Williams alleges that the selection process silences workers who may endanger the farm’s curated image being presented to the auditor, suggesting that workers may not be aware of the Fairtrade certification because they are excluded from the auditing processes.

This statement is especially concerning because FLOCERT, as the independent Fairtrade auditing body, should be alive to the reality that the farm management may attempt to mislead auditors in order to maintain the certification and should conduct audits in ways that minimise opportunities for false representation. The intention is that workers should be integrally involved in the auditing process, but only one of the farmworkers interviewed knew of the Fairtrade label; moreover, she had learned about it not in terms of the benefits of the certification but rather in terms of the disparity that the use of the label has helped to perpetuate on the farm between regular and irregularly employed casual labour, as explained below.⁴⁴

Regular Employment with Set Working Hours

One of the pillars of social upgrading is regular employment. Stephanie Barrientos and Sally Smith have found that where employers contribute to worker-benefit programmes such as pensions and insurance for their workers, there is a significantly lower risk of poverty, illness and suffering due to old age for workers.⁴⁵ However, these benefits are usually only available to workers with regular employment and not to part-time or third-party contracted workers.⁴⁶ Regular employment has further been found to provide greater access to legally enforceable worker rights and improved labour standards, existing as an enabling right in facilitating social upgrading.⁴⁷ In contrast, irregular work creates a barrier to social upgrading as temporary or apprenticeship contracts often keep workers in a precarious employment situation.⁴⁸

Precarious employment and labour casualisation are notable problems in the South African context. The rise of labour casualisation, as a form of irregular work, has hindered South African post-apartheid development. Dharam Ghai argues that the casualisation of work within the global economic system is rooted in the ideological and programmatic Reagan–Thatcherite rejection of the welfare state and the undermining of the bargaining power of collective labour.⁴⁹ In South Africa, the end of apartheid led to the expectation that workers would experience positive changes, but unfortunately many have only shifted from being oppressed wage labourers under the colonial and apartheid regime to poor casual workers in a liberalised economy.⁵⁰ Stephen Devereux reports that the restructuring of labour has seen the decline of formally employed workers in commercial agriculture from 1.8 million workers in the 1960s to 650,000 workers by 2010, while labour costs as a share of total costs decreased from 30 per cent to 15 per cent.⁵¹ Margareet Visser and Stuart Ferrer observe that by 2015, only around half (51.1 per cent) of South African farmworkers reported having permanent employment, with 25.2 per cent employed for a short duration only, and 23.6 per cent employed for an unspecified amount of time.⁵² Casualisation allows employers to pay workers less and to pay them inconsistently while also avoiding worker-benefit programmes such as insurances or pensions.⁵³ While many South African workers expected economic liberation to follow from the introduction of democracy, South Africa’s re-entry into the global economy, following the lifting of international sanctions against trade, has instead introduced new constraints which have served to exacerbate existing inequalities.⁵⁴

According to South African Fairtrade standards, for farms to achieve Fairtrade certification most work on the farm must be undertaken by permanent employers, with time-limited contracts only permitted during peak periods for special tasks and under special circumstances.⁵⁵ However, given the labour casualisation described above, it is unsurprising that the situation on the farms visited for this study did not seem to match this requirement. Fairtrade farmworkers interviewed for this study reported the widespread use of labour brokers. Several farmworkers reported that it was common practice for workers to be dismissed only to be rehired as casual workers on the same farm, but employed through labour brokers.⁵⁶ The workers reported that they do not believe that this process of dismissing workers and rehiring these workers on a seasonal basis is due to the farm’s financial constraints, as these same farmers are able to rapidly expand their agricultural holdings.⁵⁷

An additional benefit of labour casualisation for Fairtrade farmers is that by reducing the number of permanent farmworkers on their farms, farmers and farm management can better control the Fairtrade premium that is supposed to be paid out to Fairtrade workers. The Fairtrade premiums tend to benefit only or principally the permanent workers on the farm. This issue signals a failure in the use of the Fairtrade premium. As explained by Katharina Krumbiegel, Miet Maertens and Meike Wollni, all workers (both permanent and casual) should have access to the Fairtrade premium worker committee, which decides on the use of the Fairtrade premium towards farmworker projects.⁵⁸ The Fairtrade premium is pivotal to the success of the certificatory label. As FTI seeks to restructure labour relationships to benefit workers, the Fairtrade premium generated from the sale of commodities labelled as ‘Fairtrade’ is intended to subsidise these benefits.⁵⁹ Indeed, it is this model of market-based development that underpinned the creation of the Max Havelaar label, a predecessor to Fairtrade, which sought to leverage an ethical label to connect coffee producers from the Mexican cooperative of Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la Región del Istmo to European buyers that were willing to pay a higher price for products to ensure that the products are produced fairly.⁶⁰ The workers interviewed for this study complained that they were not given permanent and reliable employment and were not able to access benefits such as those related to the Fairtrade premium.

Legally Enforceable Worker Rights

Worker rights are a second pillar of the ILO’s decent work agenda.⁶¹ Worker rights facilitate the achievement of the pillars of regular employment, social protection and social dialogue through enforcing the recognition of worker dignity, entitlement to fair remuneration and representation as required of employers.⁶² According to Benjamin Selwyn, workers’ rights should not be considered separate from human rights, as each person is entitled to these rights regardless of context or circumstance.⁶³ Workers should work and live in conditions that are dignified and fair. To understand the extent to which workers’ rights are being meaningfully protected on South African Fairtrade wine farms, our study explores workers’ working and living conditions.

Working Conditions

The South African wine industry has historically been a site of extreme exploitation towards workers, which has been underpinned by the colonial and apartheid regimes in which workers were made socially and economically dependent on the exploitative practices of white farmers.⁶⁴ Working conditions for South African farmworkers have, historically, been far from anything which may be described as ‘fair’. While it might be hoped that the end of apartheid has led to substantial changes, the working conditions encountered during the fieldwork conducted for this study were harsh and workers were poorly compensated for their labour, a sadly ironic situation given that the workers are producing ‘Fairtrade’ wine. During the harvesting season, Fairtrade workers of Fairtrade Farm 3 explained that they are expected to carry 40 buckets of wine grapes in a day.⁶⁵ These grapes are carried in rough fibreglass buckets, with the buckets only counting if the grapes are overflowing from the buckets.⁶⁶ If not overflowing, the worker is expected to carry the bucket back to collect more grapes. Mr Phillips explains that if the criterion of 40 buckets is not met, workers are expected to sign a document at the end of the day specifying that they did not meet their target for the day.⁶⁷ This is often grounds for dismissal, as an ‘underperforming’ worker is easily replaced by another seasonal worker for the next day. Mr Phillips pointed out that while they earn R3 (US$0.21) per bucket, the first ten buckets are ‘for the farm’ as a rule formulated and enforced by the farmer, meaning that the workers are reportedly not even paid the already low amount of R3 per bucket for the first ten buckets.⁶⁸ Workers explained that for the months of the harvesting season they wake up every working day with the task of carrying 40 heavy buckets of overflowing grapes in the hope that the overseer deems the bucket to be adequate; if not, the workers are sent back to gather more grapes.

The dehumanising daily cycle of the harvesting season not only exposes workers to indignities but may even be life-threatening in view of respondents’ reports that farmers do not, in their experience, prioritise farmworkers’ health. For example, Ms Dunn describes the experience of a neighbour on Fairtrade Farm 4, saying:

That guy is suffering from high blood [pressure], so during work he couldn’t go and get more medication, so what happened was that he passed out during working hours and he went to the hospital. The next day when he came back, he was told that he absconded from work because he was drinking too much.⁶⁹

According to the workers interviewed, a common reality is that fainting or suffering from a medical health issue would result in a worker being sent home rather than to the hospital, ultimately endangering their lives.⁷⁰ Furthermore, farm managers may even blame legitimate medical issues on workers’ alcohol consumption; this seems an unfair stance, particularly in the light of the history of the ‘dop system’ under which drinking was encouraged.

Workers interviewed for this study further, and repeatedly, raised a range of other concerns related to pesticides.⁷¹ Despite the fact that exposure to pesticides relates to workers’ health and safety, several workers interviewed mentioned that it was difficult to report the issue. The workers on Fairtrade Farm 5 had raised concerns over the effects of pesticides on their health but were met with hostility from the farm’s management.⁷² Mr Abrahams explains what happened when he asked the farm management to provide protective measures for those using pesticides:

The season for pesticides is now starting, and there [are] no protective measures in place to protect us against the pesticides. We go to the office to ask for more protective clothing and measures to be put into place, and the manager will yell at us. The overalls [we are using] are not meant for pesticides. They’re ordinary overalls.⁷³

A core requirement of Fairtrade certification for South African wine farms is the regular training of workers in the basic requirements of occupational health and safety.⁷⁴ A further requirement is for the regular examinations and check-ups of workers by a medical professional.⁷⁵ The issue reported by Mr Abrahams is a serious one, as it reflects a disregard for the training of workers regarding safety measures in applying pesticides, with workers rather than managers identifying the inadequacy of the farm’s protective measures.⁷⁶ Furthermore, the alleged hostile response to workers reporting occupational health and safety issues suggests a flagrant disregard for not only basic human sympathy but also for stipulated Fairtrade standards.

Mr Daniels elaborated on the issue by explaining that even the drivers (usually permanent employees) who dispense the pesticides for Fairtrade Farm 5 are only provided with masks while their skin remains exposed:

There’s 29 permanent workers. These are mainly the drivers and people who spray the pesticides. We get overalls but what is different about the overalls is just that they are red so that you can know that this is the spraying man. We drive open trucks, there are masks, but it doesn’t cover the whole face but just the nose and the mouth. Some of the workers pass out. Some of the people get blisters and funny things on their skin. They don’t take you to the hospital immediately, you get told to go home, and you must walk home. It depends on where you are working. This guy has a big, big farm. But the next day you must come back and work.⁷⁷

Mr Daniels’s account suggests that some Fairtrade farms do not comply with the previously mentioned Fairtrade requirement that the farm should provide workers with access to a medical professional.⁷⁸ These conditions, as described by the workers of the examined Fairtrade farms, display management’s flagrant disregard for worker rights and human rights, which are a prerequisite for social upgrading.

Living Conditions

The farmworkers interviewed for this study all live (or had at some point lived) on the farms where they work. Therefore, both their working and living conditions are determined by the farm owners and management. Numerous workers described their houses as being old and in need of renovation, with the worst houses reportedly belonging to workers who had drawn the farmer’s ire.⁷⁹ However, even where houses have been renovated, some workers report that conditions have not improved. Ms Botha has been one such worker to argue that when her house came to be renovated and she had to move out, her living conditions worsened, as she was provided with a poorly constructed ‘temporary’ home on Fairtrade Farm 1:

I have to constantly move my bed when it rains because the water comes through. I have been here since 1979. They [farm management] have ignored me. They don’t care. These houses have been standing here, from the first of November, it will be three years that they are standing here. There was a person that came here and recommended that the houses are too small and need to be extended and get a built-in toilet and bathroom.⁸⁰

Ms Botha expressed exasperation with the farmworkers’ living conditions remaining unchanged and expressed her sense that workers’ needs were dismissed.⁸¹ People within these worker communities commonly expressed a sentiment that they were being ignored and that there had been too little positive change in these living conditions throughout their lifetimes on these farms.⁸² Ms Williams further highlighted the issue of water-related hazards incurred as a result of poor housing conditions, saying:

We grew up on the farm. We don’t know any other farm. The conditions that we live under, especially the water, the water from the rain comes into the houses whereby our children have to walk through this water. When it comes to the farmer, nothing is being done.⁸³

Ms Williams reported that water damage from rain is a serious and, unfortunately, consistent issue, and the housing which she and her family occupies has not been built in a way that is secure against rain.⁸⁴

Of particular concern to the participants in this discussion of workers’ living conditions was their inability to address their conditions. When discussing their exposure to bees, flooding or structurally unsafe housing, the workers’ expressed a need for the farmer to address these issues. The farmworkers’ dependency on the farmer to provide and maintain their housing remains painfully reminiscent of South Africa’s historical legacy of oppression on farms. This raises concerns not only regarding the divide between Fairtrade standards and the alleged practices of Fairtrade certified farms but also about a lack of change in a wine industry plagued by a history of dependency.

Social Protection through Collective and Individual Bargaining Power

In the previous sections, the experiences of workers have highlighted issues of unfair dismissals, exposure to pesticides and poor housing as well as the inability of individual workers to challenge these conditions. These experiences emphasise the importance of both individual bargaining power and social protection. Social protection through collective and individual bargaining power is a core requirement of Fairtrade wine certification and is also a core component of the ILO’s decent work agenda, which requires that workers are included in economic development through social dialogue between workers and employers.⁸⁵ FTI stipulates that workers on Fairtrade wine farms should be able to access trade unions and engage in collective bargaining. Furthermore, Fairtrade farms are supposed to be free of anti-union discrimination or any acts of interference in union activities by the employer from two years before certification.⁸⁶ In this way, the Fairtrade label apparently provides workers with social protection and encourages social dialogue. However, to assess whether or not this is really the case on South African Fairtrade farms, it is important to listen to the farmworkers themselves.

The ILO’s decent work agenda could be said to promote a top-down approach to social upgrading which emphasises the employers’ role rather than the role of the workers.⁸⁷ Selwyn argues instead for the recognition of social upgrading from a bottom-up approach which, rather than focusing on employers and institutions as the providers of social development, seeks to empower workers, as active agents, in the facilitation of their development.⁸⁸ The reasoning is simple: workers do not need saviours, they need to be heard. If Fairtrade certification is to work in accordance with the official description of its procedures, it should assist in increasing worker agency. However, as we show below, this does not seem to be happening on the Fairtrade farms forming part of this study.

Reporting Complaints

Collective bargaining may occur without the prior knowledge or approval of a farmer as the mass mobilisation of workers may lead to a bargaining process. This kind of bargaining provides a form of social protection through the collective organisation of workers in a way that threatens the operation of the farm. Discussions with Fairtrade farmworkers reveal that workers are often encouraged to raise complaints with farm management individually rather than engaging in collective bargaining. However, farmworkers report that complaining to farm management is not effective. For example, Ms Smit reports that the farmer expects them to report to him, but he offers no solutions:

The thing is that when there is a problem, we report it to the farmer … It is the rule[s] that we must report to the farmer, but they decide what happens with that. For example, this lady’s daughter was dismissed, and the lady went to the farmer to explain that the daughter was sick and in the hospital, so she can’t report to work. The child’s sick. She did report it, but she was still fired, so we don’t know why this farmer is dismissing her.⁸⁹

The farmer may endorse the principle that workers should report issues in a complaint system, but this is not helpful if the complaints are not taken seriously. For this reason, workers take their grievances to trade unions, but Ms Du Plessis of Fairtrade Farm 2 reports that going to the union can result in one being targeted or dismissed:

Our grievances are not being listened to. The farmer will tell us that if we have a problem, we must come to them and approach them about it, but nothing gets done with our problems. It’s just a matter of wasting time with the matter, which is when we go to the unions to deal with the matter, but this is when you get targeted for a dismissal.⁹⁰

This claim suggests that farm dismissals function as a preventative measure that protects against worker collective action and disincentivises the ‘heightened consciousness’ that inspires workers’ mass mobilisation.

It is important to consider that collective bargaining is something built into the Fairtrade wine model in the form of the Fairtrade Premium Committee, whose members are intended to represent the voices of the workforce. Ms Williams, the single farmworker interviewed who had ever heard of the term ‘Fairtrade’, argues that in practice this committee on Fairtrade Farm 2 is not functional:

I don’t know who is in the committee because this committee is not functional. Even if you instruct them to go to hold meetings, they don’t say what we have told them to say. They have to listen to what management is telling them. It is the employer who elected who must be in the committee. Most of the people that are on the committee were put there by the employer, and most people in the committee are those that fear the employer, [those] who will not backchat the employer. They do not choose people who are talkative.⁹¹

What is suggested here is that the Fairtrade Premium Committee has been co-opted by a farmer seeking to fill the committee with workers who can easily be intimidated by the farmer. The purpose of the Fairtrade Premium Committee is to represent farmworkers’ interests and to facilitate communication between workers and farm management about socio-economic and development issues.⁹² However, workers across the various Fairtrade wine farms have argued that in practice neither this structure nor the communication between workers and the farm management exist in practice.

Farm Dismissals

Workers’ accounts of their experiences suggest that they are often dismissed for arbitrary reasons. Workers in this study reported having been dismissed for missing work due to childcare responsibilities, sickness, ‘backchat’, trade union association and speaking to the media, as well as allegations of intoxication.⁹³ It should be noted that workers are often dismissed and rehired in a cyclical way. Even once dismissed, many workers remain on the farms as their homes are there and as other family members are also likely to work on the farm. Dismissed farmworkers may end up being employed again, although often only as casual workers during harvesting season. It appears that the only common ground between these dismissals is that they were immediate and unexpected by the workers.⁹⁴ Mr Davids from Fairtrade Farm 5, describes such a dismissal:

The manager is also proving a point by showing that she can dismiss people without telling the owner. You don’t get a second chance here, even if you have children. There is no mercy for you here. The manager will dismiss you on the spot.⁹⁵

Mr David’s account suggests that the farm manager will dismiss workers in order to emphasise her power and control, irrespective of the farm owner’s approval or the merit of the actual dismissal.⁹⁶ His emphasis on the manager’s control over workers, evident in her power to dismiss workers ‘on the spot’, suggests that oppression on the farm is not limited to the relationship between the farmer and farmworkers. Instead, oppressive powers appear to extend to the members of the farm’s management.

Farmworkers report that their attempts to work with the union in order to escape the control of the farmer and farm management could be met with the threat of dismissal. According to Mr Joubert:

The employer is saying that there is no need to come and complain to the union because they are not assisting us in any way. We felt very scared after being in a meeting after a worker was dismissed for speaking out.⁹⁷

The employer’s claim that the union does not offer support to the workers could be interpreted as a plea for the workers to respect his power and recognise him as the only provider they need. This interpretation accords with the Fairtrade farmers’ consistent representation of themselves as the providers for and saviours of the farmworkers; this, in turn, remains deeply rooted in the paternalistic idea that the extreme exploitation of farmworkers on Fairtrade farms benefits them, as they are perceived as being incapable of surviving off the farm. However, the workers were not captive to these delusions and recognised that the nature of this farm dependency was one of exploitation, even when presented by the farmer as a form of benevolence.⁹⁸ Workers demonstrated awareness of the exploitative nature of their conditions and the deceptiveness of farmers and farm management. Farmworkers did not accept the farmers’ representation of their work on the farm and were sceptical of fruitless complaint-reporting mechanisms.

Farm Evictions

Not only have workers reported that contesting the conditions on the farm carries the risk of dismissal, but also that doing so often seems convenient for these farmers, who are able to terminate workers’ employment without honouring any of their responsibilities as employers.⁹⁹ As discussed earlier, farm dismissal often results in a situation in which workers continue to live on the farm but are only employed casually through labour brokers based on the farmers’ needs. However, the prospect of dismissal also presents another danger to workers as it may be followed by eviction from the farm.

Numerous farmworkers highlighted the fear of eviction from the farm as not only relating to the loss of work but also entailing the loss of a home for their families.¹⁰⁰ This fear illustrates how deeply farm dependency has interlinked the labour of these workers with their homes. Eviction from a farm affects not only the workers themselves but also their spouses, parents and children.

Farm evictions are by no means a recent occurrence on South African farms. Doreen Atkinson reports that evictions have for a long time been used to enforce the power of South African farmers and this has not changed with the end of apartheid.¹⁰¹ According to Atkinson, farm evictions increased after 1994 due to the loss of state support in sectors such as the wine industry, the introduction of labour laws and a shift towards labour casualisation.¹⁰² Between 1994 and 2004 there was an ‘exodus’ of farmworkers amounting to 942,000 evicted workers.¹⁰³ There are laws that protect against evictions – for example, the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act of 1996, which protects people with informal rights to land against eviction and the subsequent Extension of Security of Tenure Act (ESTA) of 1997, which provides rights over private land to farm occupants.¹⁰⁴ However, Joachim Ewert and Johann Hamman note that while ESTA protects persons over 60 years of age and disabled persons who have worked on the farm for over ten years from being evicted, any other eviction of farm occupants is to be decided by the courts based on ‘fairness and equitability’.¹⁰⁵ Furthermore, according to Atkinson, many magistrates do not use ESTA to guide their decisions but rather use common-law definitions of evictions that offer less protection to farmworkers.¹⁰⁶ In addition, farmers continue to ‘short-circuit’ the legal process by entering into informal agreements with workers to vacate the premise in exchange for incentive pay.¹⁰⁷

A related issue is the legality of residence on farms for many farmworkers in the absence of a formal contract. In speaking to Mr Nel, a former farmworker of Fairtrade Farm 2 in the process of being evicted, it became clear that it is difficult for workers to prove that they have the right to stay on the farm. Although Mr Nel and others had signed a contract confirming the ownership of their homes, these contracts seemingly disappeared:

We signed the contract, all the people signed a contract, and then last year when this new farmer bought the farm, he [the previous owner] told the people that they [the workers] own their houses here. Now, this farmer is doing evictions. All of these people are more than ten years living here, some of these people of 20, 30 years living here … When we asked for the contracts for the house, all the people was asking for it. They said ‘no, the contract got burnt up’ and everything like that. You never see the contract. We waited all of these years. Where is the contract for the house?¹⁰⁸

While the contracts signed by the workers for their homes may indeed have burnt in a fire, one wonders why the Fairtrade farmer kept these contracts without a copy being provided to the workers. An issue that exacerbates this situation is the lack of accessibility and knowledge of the recourse available to people such as Mr Nel, who are unaware of the Fairtrade label or legislation such as ESTA.¹⁰⁹ Workers highlighted that their main recourse against the threat of eviction is the support of trade unions, but even with the assistance of trade unions, they face magistrates’ subjective interpretation of ‘fairness and equitability’ and the varying use of common-law or ESTA definitions of evictions.¹¹⁰ In addition, Atkinson notes that familiarity with the procedures surrounding legal evictions built through continuous experience has enabled farmers increasingly to follow the correct legal procedures to secure evictions.¹¹¹ As indicated by several farmworkers interviewed for this research, the result is that loss of employment on the farm may easily result in a loss of residence through eviction.

Interviews with workers suggest that a key reason for eviction seems to be the farmer’s inability to extract productive labour from the worker. According to Ms van Rooyen from Fairtrade Farm 5, workers who are not as productive as desired by the farmer are dismissed, with the likelihood of being evicted.¹¹² In this regard, Ms van Rooyen emphasises that absence from work for even a few days often warrants a dismissal and subsequent eviction, saying: ‘[t]he reason for the dismissal and the evictions was that people did not go to work every day. If you stayed at home for more than two days, three days, they would just immediately dismiss you and evict you’.¹¹³ The implication is that if workers are sick and unable to attend work, they may lose not only their employment, but also their homes.

While the prospect of losing both one’s job and one’s home is bad enough, workers such as Ms Snyman report that the situation is exacerbated by actions taken by farmers and farm management to ensure that the decision to evict a worker may not be contested or reversed.¹¹⁴ In describing her fear of being evicted, Ms Snyman of Fairtrade Farm 4 explains that evictions are often followed by the destruction of the homes of those evicted:

You know what happens here is that once they get rid of you, they demolish the house immediately. So even if you do challenge it, there is no house to go back to. There was a worker near here that when he packed his last goods, his house was demolished immediately, and we were coming from church that we saw that. When they were just leaving, packing the last items onto the truck, that is when the farmer instructed the man to demolish the house.¹¹⁵

The house referred to by Ms Snyman may easily have been missed by an outsider as the remnants of the concrete structure were difficult to see in the long grass, formerly a modest lawn.¹¹⁶ The worker described by Ms Snyman was apparently provided with an incentive payment to facilitate the eviction.¹¹⁷ This allegation would appear to provide an illustration of the way in which a farmer may bypass the legal process through an informal agreement with a worker, which may include incentive pay.

Evictions can be viewed as part of a broader process of worker deradicalisation. Workers who challenge the power of the farmer and fail to be sufficiently productive face eviction. The close connection between the labour of farmworkers and their livelihoods has long been a feature of South Africa’s exploitative economic system.¹¹⁸ However, what makes the situations described above particularly egregious is that they occur on farms that have been certified as ‘Fairtrade’, a labelling system that is intended to improve the lives of workers.

Social Dialogue

Social dialogue, as the final pillar of social upgrading and decent work, may be regarded as involving a synergy of regular employment, enforceable worker rights and social protection through bargaining power.¹¹⁹ Regular employment is important because it is difficult for irregularly employed workers to access worker rights, which are essential for worker bargaining power and provide a framework for worker entitlements and benefits. Social protection protects workers from anti-union discrimination or any acts of interference by the employer. The culmination of these pillars of social upgrading is social dialogue, the articulation of bargaining power through clear and open communication between employers and workers. Ghai argues that the purpose of social dialogue between employers and workers is to ensure that work takes place in a manner that prioritises freedom, equity, security and human dignity.¹²⁰

In speaking to workers on Fairtrade farms for this study, it was immediately apparent that workers feel that there is very little social dialogue. Workers very often expressed the sentiment that they are not being listened to.¹²¹ Instead, they report that communication between farmworkers and farm management mainly involves instructions given by the farm management to the workers.

One farmworker’s account of struggles to get his retirement package paid illustrates the problems related to communication between farmers and farmworkers. When farmworkers retire, they are rarely given decent retirement packages, making it difficult for them to leave the farm even if they would like to do so and placing pressure on their children to continue working on the farm to support their parents. In this regard, Mr Jansen explains that the farmer of Fairtrade Farm 4 has not paid out his retirement package:

Before this farm was bought over, we were promised a retirement package, but when he sold the farm over to the new farmer, there were six of us. Some of the others had passed away, but the old farmer gave the package to the new farmer, saying that when we retire, it will be the new farmer that pays us out. That’s why we are going to the farmer because we want our money. We are the oldest people to work on the farm, and we were told that our packages are with the farmer. My son went to speak to the farmer, and what the farmer said was ‘is your father crazy, does he think that I am a poes (fool) [sic] to give your father this money. What is your father going to do with this much money?’¹²²

Of course, it is not the employer’s business to demand to know what the worker will do with their retirement package. Instead, the employer’s responsibility is to pay the former employee what they are owed. Mr Jansen, however, goes on to explain why he needs his retirement package:

That money [the state old-age pension] does not last us for the whole month, we must also buy electricity, and if you don’t have money for electricity, you will not have electricity. So even now, there is no power, there is no electricity. We might not have [any] for a week.¹²³

Mr Jansen’s account suggests a contemporary iteration of historical modalities of oppression on farms, wherein a farmer assumes that the best interest of the farmworker resides in his or her hands as the employer, irrespective of the actual needs of worker which are not addressed through social dialogue. Mr Pienaar, a former worker on Fairtrade Farm 4, now working on a different farm, further reports instances of a farmer acting on behalf of farmworkers, without consultation or discussion with them. Mr Pienaar suggests that this kind of control is also exercised when farmers take out funeral policies on behalf of their permanent employees and then deduct the purported costs from the employees’ salaries.¹²⁴ He alleges that such funeral policies are opened to enrich the Fairtrade farmer further rather than to benefit workers:

The farmer would come and ask for identity documents because what he was doing was opening up a funeral cover … So what the farmer does for you when you pass away is that he will give you a hole where you can bury the deceased person, and he will buy you a coffin. The rest of the money will go to him.¹²⁵

Several farmworkers on Fairtrade Farm 4 raised this issue of funeral policies.¹²⁶ They indicated that they had not given consent for the deduction of the funeral policy payments, but only learnt about the funeral policy when the money was deducted from their salaries. Furthermore, they alleged that farmworkers’ families did not receive the benefits in the event of the policyholder’s death. The workers were unsure of the legality behind this. On inspection of a printed copy of the funeral policy, it was found that the policy had been opened by the Fairtrade farmer, who had further designated himself as the beneficiary of the policy pay-out in the event of a worker’s death. It seems that this Fairtrade farmer has not only ensured his financial success within global production networks but that he apparently also profits from the death of farmworkers, whose lives and labour have been bonded to his farm.

Conclusion

This article outlines the alleged practices on five Fairtrade wine farms as described by the 30 farmworker participants. These alleged practices are extremely concerning because they occur on Fairtrade-certified wine farms which supposedly meet Fairtrade standards.¹²⁷ It is also alarming that the farmworkers interviewed showed little awareness of Fairtrade, which suggests that FTI leaves the social upgrading of farmworkers to the (largely white) commercial wine producers. This situation is frighteningly similar to the conditions under apartheid in which the government supported white farmers in controlling the lives and labour of their black workers.¹²⁸ White commercial farmers have historically been enriched through such extreme exploitation.

The conditions on the five Fairtrade farms visited are not conducive to social upgrading, defined as regular employment, worker rights, social protection and social dialogue.¹²⁹ Systemic issues of oppression and dependency have been noted in farmworkers’ experiences and in the accounts of media and trade union participants. The farmers and farm management on the Fairtrade farms described in this article are alleged to co-opt their Fairtrade Premium Committees, casualise their labour and perpetuate farm dependency. As our findings are based on interviews with farmworkers on only five farms, we cannot say for certain that conditions on other Fairtrade wine farms are the same. However, our study certainly shows that Fairtrade certification does not guarantee the social upgrading of farmworkers in the South African wine industry. This finding therefore calls into question the decision to include large-scale, commercial producers in Fairtrade certification.

Acknowledgements

This research was jointly funded by the National Research Foundation and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joshua Bell

Joshua Bell Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Global Partnership Network, Rhodes University, Drosty Road, Grahamstown, Makhanda, 6139, South Africa. Email: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5411-9379

Sally Matthews

Sally Matthews Associate Professor, Department of Political and International Studies, Rhodes University, Drosty Road, Grahamstown, Makhanda, 6139, South Africa. Email: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7635-3908

Notes

1 R. Dragusanu, D. Giovannucci and N. Nunn, ‘The Economics of Fair Trade’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 28, 3 (2014), pp. 217–36.

2 R.H. Robbins, ‘Coffee, Fair Trade and the Commodification of Morality’, Reviews in Anthropology, 42, 4 (2013), pp. 243–63.

3 B. Jari, J.D. Snowball and G.C.G. Fraser, ‘Is Fairtrade in Commercial Farms Justifiable? Its Impact on Commercial and Small-Scale Producers in South Africa’, Agrekon, 52, 4 (2013), pp. 66–88.

4 C. Cramer, D. Johnston, C. Oya. and J. Sender, ‘Fairtrade Cooperatives in Ethiopia and Uganda: Uncensored’, Review of African Political Economy, 41, S1 (2014), pp. S115–S127.

5 Ibid., p. S116.

6 Ibid., p. S123.

7 S. Besky, ‘Can a Plantation Be Fair? Paradoxes and Possibilities in Fair Trade Darjeeling Tea Certification’, Anthropology of Work Review, 29, 1 (2008), pp. 1–9.

8 R. Makita, ‘Fair Trade Certification: The Case of Tea Plantation Workers in India’, Development Policy Review, 30, 1 (2012), pp. 87–107.

9 C. Oya, F. Schaefer and D. Skalidou, ‘The Effectiveness of Agricultural Certification in Developing Countries: A Systematic Review’, World Development, 112 (2018), pp. 282–312.

10 International Labour Organization (ILO), ‘Decent Work: International Labour Conference 87th Session 1999’, Inform: Bureau of Library and Information Services (Geneva, ILO, 1999), available at https://www.ilo.org/legacy/english/lib/century/sources/sources1999.htm, retrieved 4 May 2019.

11 Ibid.

12 S. Barrientos, G. Gereffi and A. Rossi, ‘Economic and Social Upgrading in Global Production Networks: A New Paradigm for a Changing World’, International Labour Review, 150, 3–4 (2011), pp. 319–40.

13 ILO, ‘Decent Work’.

14 J.P. Tsheola, ‘Theorising a Democratic Developmental State: Issues of Public Service Delivery Planning and Violent Protests In South Africa’, Journal of Public Administration, 47, 1 (2012), pp. 161–79.

15 Dragusanu et al., ‘The Economics of Fair Trade’.

16 Robbins, ‘Coffee, Fair Trade and the Commodification of Morality’.

17 Ibid.

18 Dragusanu et al., ‘The Economics of Fair Trade’.

19 Jari et al., ‘Is Fairtrade in Commercial Farms Justifiable?’.

20 Fairtrade Foundation, ‘Impact of Fairtrade in South Africa – 2010’, 2010, available at https://www.fairtrade.net/library/impact-of-fairtrade-in-south-africa, retrieved 17 September 2020.

21 Ibid., p. 5.

22 Fairtrade Sweden, ‘With Joint Efforts, We Can Improve Working Conditions for Employees on Vineyards’, Fairtrade Sweden, 20 October 2016, available at http://fairtrade.se/med-gemensamma-krafter-kan-vi-forbattra-arbetsvillkoren-for-anstallda-pa-vinplantage/, retrieved 23 October 2020.

23 S.K. Estreicher, ‘A Brief History of Wine in South Africa’, European Review, 22, 3 (2014), pp. 504–37.

24 S.L.A. Ferreira and C.A. Hunter, ‘Wine Tourism Development in South Africa: A Geographical Analysis’, Tourism Geographies, 19, 5 (2017), pp. 676–98.

25 C. McEwan and D. Bek, ‘(Re)Politicizing Empowerment: Lessons from the South African Wine Industry’, Geoforum, 37, 6 (2006), pp. 1021–34.

26 M.I. Rayner, ‘Wine and Slaves: The Failure of an Export Economy and the Ending of Slavery in the Cape Province, South Africa, 1806–1834’ (PhD thesis, Duke University, 1986).

27 D. Bek, C. McEwan and K. Bek, ‘Ethical Trading and Socioeconomic Transformation: Critical Reflections on the South African Wine Industry’, Environment and Planning A, 39, 2 (2007), pp. 301–19.

28 P. Scully, ‘Liquor and Labor in the Western Cape, 1870–1900’, in J.S. Crush and C.H. Ambler (eds), Liquor and Labor in Southern Africa (Athens, Ohio University Press, 1992), pp. 56–77.

29 G. Williams, ‘Slaves, Workers, and Wine: The “Dop System” in the History of the Cape Wine Industry, 1658–1894’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 42, 5 (2016), pp. 893–909.

30 Bek et al., ‘Ethical Trading and Socioeconomic Transformation’.

31 A. Du Toit., S. Kruger and S. Ponte, ‘Deracializing Exploitation? “Black Economic Empowerment” in the South African Wine Industry’, Journal of Agrarian Change, 8, 1 (2008), pp. 6–32.

32 Interview with Ms Botha, Fairtrade Farm 1, 8 October 2020; interview with Ms Williams, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020; interview with Ms Du Plessis, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

33 Makita, ‘Fair Trade Certification: The Case of Tea Plantation Workers in India’.

34 Interview with Mr Nel, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

35 Interview with Ms Williams, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 M. Sidwell, Unfair Trade (London, Adam Smith Institute, 2008), available at https://docplayer.net/14337929-Unfair-trade-by-marc-sidwell.html, retrieved 22 March 2024.

39 FLOCERT, ‘Fairtrade Assurance – Rules and Guidelines (Public Version)’, 2023, available at https://flocert2023.brightminded.com/app/uploads/2023/07/Fairtrade-Assurance-Rules-Guidelines.pdf, retrieved 10 July 2023.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Dragusanu et al., ‘The Economics of Fair Trade’.

43 FLOCERT, ‘Fairtrade Assurance – Rules and Guidelines (Public Version)’.

44 Interview with Ms Williams, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

45 S. Barrientos. and S. Smith, ‘Do Workers Benefit from Ethical Trade? Assessing Codes of Labour Practice in Global Production Systems’, Third World Quarterly, 28, 4 (2007), pp. 713–29.

46 Ibid.

47 Barrientos et al., ‘Economic and Social Upgrading in Global Production Networks’.

48 A. Rossi, ‘Does Economic Upgrading Lead to Social Upgrading in Global Production Networks? Evidence from Morocco’, World Development, 46 (2013), pp. 223–33.

49 D. Ghai, ‘Decent Work: Universality and Diversity’, in D. Ghai (ed.), Decent Work: Objectives and Strategies (Geneva, International Labour Office Geneva, 2006), pp. 4–7.

50 M. Di Paola and N. Pons-Vignon, ‘Labour Market Restructuring in South Africa: Low Wages, High Insecurity’, Review of African Political Economy, 40, 138 (2013), pp. 628–38.

51 S. Devereux, ‘Violations of Farm Workers’ Labour Rights in Post-Apartheid South Africa’, Development Southern Africa, 37, 3 (2019), p. 384.

52 M. Visser and S. Ferrer, Farm Workers’ Living and Working Conditions in South Africa: Key Trends, Emergent Issues, and Underlying and Structural Problems, research report, Pretoria Office of the International Labour Organization, February 2015, p. ii.

53 M. Visser and S. Godfrey, ‘Are Trade Unions and NGOs Leveraging Social Codes to Improve Working Conditions? A Study of Two Locally Developed Codes in the South African Fruit and Wine Farming Sectors’, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), PLAAS Working Paper 49, 21 November 2017, University of the Western Cape, available at https://repository.uwc.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10566/4531/wp_49_are_trade_unions_and_ngos_leveraging_social_codes_to_improve_working_conditions_2017.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y, retrieved 29 February 2024.

54 Bek et al., ‘Ethical Trading and Socioeconomic Transformation’.

55 K. Krumbiegel, M. Maertens and M. Wollni, ‘The Role of Fairtrade Certification for Wages and Job Satisfaction of Plantation Workers’, World Development, 102 (2018), pp. 195–212.

56 Interview with Ms van Wyk, Fairtrade Farm 1, 8 October 2020; interview with Ms Pieterse, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020; interview with Mr Nel, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

57 Interview with Ms van Wyk, Fairtrade Farm 1, 8 October 2020; interview with Ms Pieterse, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020; interview with Mr Nel, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

58 Krumbiegel et al., ‘The Role of Fairtrade Certification’.

59 Jari et al., ‘Is Fairtrade in Commercial Farms Justifiable?’.

60 Dragusanu et al., ‘The Economics of Fair Trade’, p. 218; M.C. Renard and V. Pérez-Grovas, ‘Fair Trade Coffee in Mexico’, in L.T. Raynolds, D. Murray and J. Wilkinson (eds), Fair Trade: The Challenges of Transforming Globalization (London, Routledge, 2007), pp. 141–45.

61 Ghai, ‘Decent Work’, pp. 7–8.

62 Ibid.

63 B. Selwyn, 2019, ‘Poverty Chains and Global Capitalism’, Competition & Change, 23, 1 (2019), pp. 71–97.

64 P. Scatigna, ‘The South African Wine Industry: A Mirror of a Country in Transition’, in F. Barbera and E. Ochse (eds), A Game of Mirrors: Economic Development and Social Cohesion in Piedmont and South Africa (Turin, COREP Frame-Lab, 2009), pp. 213–33.

65 Interview with Mr Roberts, Fairtrade Farm 3, 8 October 2020.

66 Interview with Mr Phillips, Fairtrade Farm 3, 8 October 2020; interview with Mr Roberts, Fairtrade Farm 3, 8 October 2020.

67 Interview with Mr Phillips, Fairtrade Farm 3, 8 October 2020.

68 Ibid.

69 Interview with Ms Dunn, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020.

70 Interview with Mr Daniels, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020.

71 Interview with Ms Smit, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020; interview with Ms Pieterse, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020; interview with Ms Smit, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

72 Interview with Ms Pieterse, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020; interview with Mr Daniels, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020.

73 Interview with Mr Abrahams, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020.

74 Krumbiegel et al., ‘The Role of Fairtrade Certification’.

75 Ibid.

76 Interview with Mr Abrahams, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020.

77 Interview with Mr Daniels, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020.

78 Ibid.

79 Interview with Ms Williams, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

80 Interview with Ms Botha, Fairtrade Farm 1, 8 October 2020.

81 Ibid.

82 Interview with Ms Williams, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020; interview with Ms Smit, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020; interview with Ms Botha, Fairtrade Farm 1, 8 October 2020.

83 Interview with Ms Williams, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

84 Ibid.

85 Krumbiegel et al., ‘The Role of Fairtrade Certification’.

86 Ibid.

87 ILO, ‘Decent Work’.

88 B. Selwyn, ‘Social Upgrading and Labour in Global Production Networks: A Critique and an Alternative Conception’, Competition & Change, 17, 1 (2013), pp. 75–90.

89 Interview with Ms Smit, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

90 Interview with Ms Du Plessis, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

91 Interview with Ms Williams, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

92 Krumbiegel et al., ‘The Role of Fairtrade Certification’.

93 Interview with Ms Hendricks, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020; interview with Ms Williams, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020; interview with Mr Abrahams, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020.

94 Interview with Ms Hendricks, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020; interview with Ms Williams, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020; interview with Mr Abrahams, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020.

95 Interview with Mr Davids, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020.

96 Ibid.

97 Interview with Mr Joubert, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020.

98 Interview with Ms Williams, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020; interview with Ms Smit, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020; interview with Mr Nel, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

99 Interview with Ms Hendricks, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020; interview with Ms Williams, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020; interview with Mr Abrahams, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020.

100 Interview with Ms van Wyk, Fairtrade Farm 1, 8 October 2020; interview with Ms Williams, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020; interview with Mr Nel, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

101 D. Atkinson, Going for Broke: The Fate of Farm Workers in Arid South Africa (Cape Town, HSRC Press, 2007), p. 47.

102 Ibid.

103 Ibid., p. 84.

104 D. James, ‘Undoing Apartheid? From Land Reform to Credit Reform in South Africa’, in B. Christophers, A. Leyshon and G. Mann (eds), Money and Finance After the Crisis: Critical Thinking for Uncertain Times (Hoboken, John Wiley & Sons, 2017), pp. 145–68.

105 J. Ewert and J. Hamman, ‘Why Paternalism Survives: Globalization, Democratization and Labour on South African Wine Farms’, Sociologia Ruralis, 39, 2 (1999), p. 216.

106 Atkinson, Going for Broke, p. 86.

107 Ibid, p. 86.

108 Interview with Mr Nel, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

109 Ibid.

110 Interview with Ms van Wyk, Fairtrade Farm 1, 8 October 2020; interview with Ms Williams, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020; interview with Mr Nel, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

111 Atkinson, Going for Broke, p. 87.

112 Interview with Ms van Rooyen, Fairtrade Farm 5, 28 September 2020.

113 Ibid.

114 Interview with Ms Snyman, Fairtrade Farm 4, 28 September 2020.

115 Ibid.

116 Ibid.

117 Ibid.

118 T. Hastings, ‘Leveraging Nordic Links: South African Labour’s Role in Regulating Labour Standards in Wine Global Production Networks’, Journal of Economic Geography, 19, 4 (2019), pp. 921–42; M. Adhikari, ‘The Sons of Ham: Slavery and the Making of Coloured Identity’, South African Historical Journal, 27, 1 (1992), pp. 95–112.

119 Ghai, ‘Decent Work’, pp. 18–22.

120 Ibid.

121 Interview with Mr Phillips, Fairtrade Farm 3, 8 October 2020; interview with Mr Roberts, Fairtrade Farm 3, 8 October 2020; interview with Ms Du Plessis, Fairtrade Farm 2, 28 September 2020.

122 Interview with Mr Jansen, Fairtrade Farm 4, 28 September 2020.

123 Ibid.

124 Interview with Mr Pienaar, Fairtrade Farm 4, 28 September 2020.

125 Ibid.

126 Interview with Mr Pienaar, Fairtrade Farm 4, 28 September 2020; interview with Mr Viljoen, Fairtrade Farm 4, 28 September 2020; interview with Mr Jansen, Fairtrade Farm 4, 28 September 2020.

127 L.T. Raynolds, and J. Wilkinson, ‘Fair Trade in the Agriculture and Food Sector: Analytical Dimensions’, in Raynolds, Murray and Wilkinson (eds), Fair Trade: The Challenges’, pp. 33–47.

128 McEwan and Bek, ‘(Re)Politicizing Empowerment’.

129 Barrientos et al., ‘Economic and Social Upgrading in Global Production Networks’.