Why paternalism survives: Globalization, democratization and labour on South African wine farms

Neither deregulation, access to international markets, labour and tenure le gislation nor the transition to democracy have fundamentally changed the pa ternalist labour regime on South African wine farms. Power relations remain visibly unequal, i.e. in most cases the farmer still determines, unilatera lly, working rules, wages and housing conditions. Workers' ignorance and pa ssivity and a lack of union resources combine to leave the power of the far mer virtually unchallenged. Nevertheless, legislation has set limits to the length of the working day and created a considerable measure of social sec urity for farm workers. It has reduced workers' vulnerability and begun eff ectively to protect them against unfair dismissals, summary evictions and o ther kinds of arbitrary action on the part of the farmer. Imperfect as law enforcement may be, workers' newly found protection is almost totally due t o the determination on the part of the South African state to put an end to super-exploitation on the farm. In this respect it differs markedly from m any a government in the non-metropolitan parts of the world who have uncrit ically embraced neo-liberalism in the name of competitiveness and globaliza tion.