South Africa’s Black Farm Laborers Fight for Sliver of Better Life : Agriculture: The transition from apartheid has minorities in cities talking of affirmative action, upward mobility. But concerns of 1.3 million virtual serfs in the the fields are simpler and more desperate.

At 81, Mary Motha is too frail for the fields, so she tends 13 grandchildren in a four-room, tin-roofed brick shell provided by the white farmer her son works for.

Like black farm laborers all over South Africa, she has worked since childhood under the thumb of a series of white men, toiling for little or no pay and living in houses without electricity or running water.

Her home is 30 miles from Pretoria, the capital. But the revolution taking place there, where for the first time a black man sits in the president’s office, seems much farther away.

“We do not think there will be any change in our lives,” Motha said.

Her son, July, repeated her life of labor in exchange for shelter and subsistence pay. He earns the equivalent of $70 a month, a bit higher than what the Farmworkers Research and Resource Project says is the average for black peasants in South Africa. His monthly wage is the cost of a night out for many white South Africans.

While the transition from apartheid to democracy has black workers in cities talking of affirmative action and upward mobility, the concerns of South Africa’s estimated 1.3 million farm workers are simpler and more desperate.

The main issues for farm workers are “land . . . proper schools, clean water, basic needs,” said Motsamai Dickson Motha, agriculture specialist with the Congress of South African Trade Unions. The union organizer is not related to Mary or July Motha.

“As a boy, I tended cattle. I have never seen a classroom,” July Motha said.

The new African National Congress-led government of President Nelson Mandela says it will address the needs of the farm worker underclass, many of whom live virtually as serfs. The first farm labor laws took effect last year, and the government is planning to strengthen them.

Unions that have fought mine and factory owners in urban areas say they face special challenges on the farm, including recalcitrant farmers and difficulties in communicating with workers scattered across the countryside.

The government, unions and advocacy groups must work against traditions that have left farm workers especially weak.

Abie Ditlhake of the Farmworkers Research and Resource Project, an advocacy group, likens the white farmer to an all-powerful father who provides everything for the “children”--but who can take it all away.

Most farmers house workers, their wives and children, so dismissal can mean eviction and ruin for an entire family.

“Farmers think they own farm workers,” Ditlhake said.

Dries Bruwer, president of the Transvaal Agricultural Union and a citrus and vegetable farmer who employs about 30 workers, argues that farmers are benevolent to their employees.

“We keep on our farms the elderly, the sick, lame and lazy. They eat, they get water, they get shelter. I know quite a lot of farmers who borrow money to feed their workers,” he said.

Apartheid laws made it almost impossible for blacks to own land, forcing them to remain laborers for life.

And blacks had little legal protection from the whims of white farmers, perhaps the most conservative group in South Africa. Farm workers were shot or beaten to death for displeasing their employers, who were punished lightly or not at all.

In 1993, unions helped negotiate farm labor laws meant to put workers on a better footing.

The laws, the first extension of industrial labor provisions to the farm, took effect last year. They set standards for holidays and working hours, outlawed dismissal and eviction without cause, and declared that farm workers could join unions.

An agricultural labor court was established to review suspected violations. But it acts only when workers bring grievances, a step that requires a sophistication and courage many laborers lack.

“People are now free, but they still think the farmer is the boss and that’s it,” said Motsamai Dickson Motha, the union organizer.

He leafed through a sheaf of pamphlets, some gray with type, in which various organizations detail the new laws as a service to farm workers.

“People who are illiterate--how do they read these?” he asked.

Shareen Singh, spokeswoman for the Department of Labor, said that in the six months since the agricultural labor courts began work in mid-1994, only 47 cases were filed and 30 heard.

“We recognize there is a weakness,” Singh said. “There’s no point in granting workers rights if they don’t know what those rights are.”

She said her department hoped to put together a campaign to educate workers. Stronger labor laws affecting rural and urban workers also will be proposed this year, she said.

July Motha said his hopes are for his children, not himself.

“I would like them to be teachers and nurses,” he said.

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What the Farm Law Says

* Farmers must explain dismissals and give workers chance to answer charges.

* No worker can be evicted without court order and chance to state his case.

* Work week is 48 hours. Overtime must be paid for work beyond that; double time for work on Sundays or holidays.

* Workers must be paid regularly and given pay slips. No minimum wage.

* Workers entitled to two weeks’ paid vacation and 12 holidays each year.

* Workers may join unions.