De Doorns

WEALTH & WAGE EXTINCTION! hunger wages, household INCOME & hedge funds PROFITS [Keiser Report E389]

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• published: 06 Jan 2013
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In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the economics of wealth and wage extinction. They talk about hunger wages, household income and the hedge funds reaping huge profits off this wealth and wage extinction. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Captain Paul Watson on a ship in the Southern Ocean in Antarctica fighting the economics of extinction as practised by the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Striking farm workers in South Africa's biggest table grape-growing region set fire to more than 30 hectares of vineyards to protest against what they call "hunger wages". "The wages here are too small, R72 (£5) a day. You cannot buy anything with that money," strike leader Shaun Janca told Daily Maverick on the phone from De Doorns, in the Hex River Valley. "You must talk to the farmers." he said in Afrikaans. "The money that they pay us is nothing. We work our whole lives but still we have nothing. We are working for what? For what?" The strike started on 30 October when farm labourers stopped work and delivered a memorandum to the Western Cape government demanding higher wages, they said. But they claim the government only paid attention when the vineyards started to burn. "The workers were very unhappy about some of the comments made by the MEC of Agriculture of the Western Cape," said Braam Hanekom, chairman of People Against Suffering Oppression and Poverty (Passop), which is part of the negotiations between farmers and workers. "He said the workers' demands were unclear, but the workers said they had already handed him a memorandum a week ago when the strike started last Thursday. "People are hungry, they are frustrated and they are tired. They want to work but they want to see some improvement in their working conditions," Hanekom said. A fragile peace has since descended in the region as the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration arbitrates between strikers and their employers. Gerrit van Rensburg, the Western Cape Agriculture minister, speculated that a "third force" was behind the violence. "I am quite sure that it is not the farm workers involved in this strike, its people from Stofland (an informal settlement with a high population of migrant workers) and other areas. I am sure there is a political motive to this strike as well because nobody wants to take responsibility for the strike, and no one wants to come forward and speak to us," he said. The ANC used the opportunity to criticise the Western Cape, which is run by the opposition Democratic Alliance. Business Day reported that Marius Fransman, the ANC's provincial leader, accused Van Rensburg of supporting farmers and "not the disgruntled farm workers, and calling in helicopters for reinforcements to fight unarmed labourers". "It is shocking that one of the most affluent and financially viable produce areas in our country are paying farm workers a pittance; Workers seem not to share in the profits there for decades now and the situation became untenable," Fransman said. "Some time ago, the ANC again raised the importance of farmers and organised agriculture to stop discriminating against these workers. In this area, farm workers still feel the brunt of Apartheid abuse on farms," he said, and added that it was "completely unacceptable that these things go on unchecked". (He did not mention that the conditions of mine labourers in ANC-owned regions such as the North West.) "The labourers are working for a minimum wage of R69.39 per day. Per week it is R346.95 a week and the workers can't work for that amount. They say it is a 'hunger wage', activist and local labour advisor Petrus Brink said. "The poor people and the workers are getting poorer. They can't support their families and can't take care of their children. That is why they are becoming so aggressive, because the R346.95 is not even enough for them to survive for a week," Brink said over the phone from the offices of the Surplus People's Project in Citrusdal, where he consults on labour issues. "What the workers demand at De Doorns is for the commercial farmers who are producing for the export market to pay them more. They are demanding R150 per day," Brink added. He said many of the workers come in to do seasonal work from areas such as the Eastern Cape, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and even Somalia. "This creates a condition where permanent workers feel that their employment is under threat - that they might lose their permanent jobs. The labourers point out that the table grapes and citrus farmed in the area are intended for the export market. "The farmers make large sums of profit, but then there is no return for the workers. The farm owners reason they don't have to bargain for farm labour because there is already a pool of cheap labour, and so if the permanent workers from the Western Cape don't want to work for that amount, the farmers do have access to another labour market," Brink said.