When ‘informal’ means avoiding regulations, exploitation runs riot over workers, both from SA and elsewhere, writes Andries du Toit
When ‘informal’ means avoiding regulations, exploitation runs riot over workers, both from SA and elsewhereSA corporates ignore exploitative business practices to get their products onto spaza shelves. Picture: DAVID HARRISON
But much more is going on than simply the replacement of locals by foreigners. Rather, the structure of the spaza sector itself is changing.Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies conducted business censuses and interviews with 1,100 township grocery retailers across all nine provinces. The remaining two thirds were also informal, but were so by choice. They differed from their survivalist counterparts in that they were larger, operating from dedicated premises. They offered a wider range of stock, gave credit and had business ties with wholesalers. The also employed staff. The field work revealed about 45% of the shopkeepers we encountered were, in fact, employees.
More than half of those we interviewed reported working more than 15 hours a day, seven days a week. Some were earning as little as R400 a month. Some shop assistants claimed to be working towards becoming shareholders in the business, but more than three-quarters of our sample reported being employees only. None had written employment contracts, and all worked for cash wages.
These conditions clearly violate the country’s labour laws, which stipulated at the time that retail workers must earn at least R3,701 a month for a 45-hour work week. The law stipulates 12 hours of rest in each 24-hour period, or 36 consecutive rest hours a week, including Sundays, unless agreed in writing.
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