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South Africa's last tea farm tries to bounce back after costly pay dispute

At Magwa, the largest tea plantation in the southern hemisphere, machines lie idle and the future is far from clea
Tea leaves being plucked
Workers harvesting tea at Magwa before the dispute. Photograph: Gideon Mendel
Thulami Mtembu has worked at Magwa tea farm for 33 years. For him it's more than a job. "It's the smell. Every day I come here I feel so refreshed," he says. "I love the aroma of the tea bush. The conditions here make our tea special."
The fragrant, lime-green bushes stretch away to the horizon at the biggest tea plantation in the southern hemisphere. It is a deceptively tranquil scene. Magwa has been racked by strikes, violence and financial strife that have brought production to a standstill and put its future in doubt.
The crisis encapsulates South Africa's struggle to realise the potential of its wealth of natural resources. It is a story of low or unpaid wages, powerful unions, political inertia and allegations of financial mismanagement. It is a stark example of self-destruction.
The 1,800-hectare (4,450 acre) Magwa farm outside Lusikisiki in Eastern Cape province is blessed with an ideal climate and soil type for growing tea. At its peak five years ago it came close to profitability, producing 2.7m tonnes of tea in a season, sold in advance to countries including Britain, China, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The farm employed 1,200 permanent and 2,300 seasonal workers.
But when the market shrank and the tea price declined, the problems began. The provincial economic development corporation stepped in and, despite emergency subsidies from the state, tensions over wages erupted.
The farm claimed its workers were the best paid in the industry, earning five times more than their counterparts in Malawi. But even today, some still earn 1,100 rand (£91) a month, below the national minimum wage of R1,376 for farm work, according to Nkosinathi Mbolo, who is arbitrating between management and employees.
Sweating in the afternoon sun, Vukile Jikwayo, 51, a mechanic clad in blue overalls, said he earned R1,250 a month: "It is not enough. That is why we are still fighting. The money is too little – I have to buy food and educate five children. All we want is a better income."
From 2009, the workers rebelled over changes to their terms of conditions which they said were made without consultation. Labourers who pluck tea leaves and throw them over their shoulder into a backpack were told to increase their haul from 200kg to 253kg a day on the same pay, according to the Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu).
Then, despite tight finances, Magwa's management gave pay rises of 100% to some workers but not others, the union claims. "This led to conflict among the workers: management was selective in terms of compensation," said Mbalisi Tonga, Fawu's provincial secretary in Eastern Cape. "The manager said he would reward, in his words, 'deserving cases'."
Tonga said there was further resentment when, to comply with the law, workers' lunch breaks were extended from 30 minutes to an hour – but with a deduction of six rand. "At that point, they unified the workers. The workers said we must fight and the strike started."
There was a strike in 2010 and again in 2011. What happened during the latter is bitterly disputed. Tonga claims picketing workers were beaten and arrested by police. Magwa's management accused the workers of a violent rampage in which shots were fired, buildings gutted and a security guard killed.
Estate manager Mtembu said: "The place was ruined. They burned all the houses, destroyed protective clothing and removed everything – furniture, ceilings, floors, windows. It was a looting spree. They bashed and burned managers' cars. Offices were torched and quite a lot of rebuilding had to be done.
"The management ran away and it was a free-for-all. A security guard was killed and supervisors were severely beaten. Any manager present that day would have been killed too. We've had strikes before but nothing as violent as this one. It was workers versus management. Some of the workers themselves were beaten because they got caught off guard."
King Masangwana, a factory manager, said: "It was so violent you can't stand it. You had to run for your life."
Magwa security manager Daan Schoeman was quoted by South African media last year as saying a manager called him with a desperate plea for help. "He said, 'Help Daan, they're killing me,' but I couldn't do anything. It was impossible to get in. They chopped him up with pangas [machete-like tools], but he made it out [alive]. One of the security guards, though, was shot dead. It was terrible. That day, I started becoming an old man."
The union denies the charges. Tonga said: "From the information we got, there was no violence. We trust our sources because there were court cases. Complainants … have not been able to sustain their claims in court."
Asked about the death, he replied: "I have heard about it and some members were taken to court, but it could not be sustained and they were acquitted." The management used the strikes as a convenient excuse to flee, Tonga added. "You can't, when you have a strike, go away. This escalates the strike. We sympathise with the taxpayers. As the management, you are supposed to take the responsibility and face it. That's what they have been failing to do.
"What happens at Magwa is that if there's a strike, it's a holiday for management. They got paid for sitting at home. We try talking to them but they are not available."
The general manager, Ian Crawford, left the estate last September. Attempts by the Guardian to contact him failed. Last month, speaking toSouth Africa's Financial Mail, he described Magwa as "a murky, messy scenario with politicians and other people ducking and diving" and said he was taking it to court for money he is owed.
"Until the politics around Magwa is resolved and discipline is restored in the workplace, it will never recover," he added. "I don't believe it will ever get up and running again. It's game over for a project that had huge potential to uplift poor people."
Crawford has been criticised by workers and the government alike. Ayabulela Ngoqo of the department of rural development and agrarian reform, said: "Mr Crawford was running Magwa like his own house. He was a man who could stop on the side of the road and sign a cheque. There was a revolt from the workers who were not satisfied with the way he was managing Magwa."
Other managers who had left the farm in February 2011 returned in November, too late to save that year's harvest. In some months workers went unpaid.
Mtembu said: "When we came back, pruning was a waste of time. A whole season was lost: maybe about R30m. Everything we are doing now is getting ready for next season. We talk to the workers – but we make sure we don't talk about the past."
An uneasy truce has been reached, with managers and workers in dialogue, though some managers remain offsite. But a shortage of funds to invest in tractors, trailers, coal and diesel means that employees have been reduced to "piece work" of six hours instead of the standard nine. The fields are being maintained in readiness but there is no guarantee of a harvest in September.
Machinery is lying idle. The last date written on a chalkboard at the entrance is 04-02-11. Inside the giant sheds, rows of conveyor belts are standing still and tea-cutting equipment gathers dust. Power generators are lifeless, while vast coal boilers for steaming tea are empty. "This would normally be operating at full steam," said Mbolo. "But there is a shortage of coal and parts."
So the paralysis continues. Mtembu said: "As far as production is concerned, there is nothing happening. We don't have funds to buy coal or diesel. We have made requests to the government. It did promise R20m to assist with the planting but sometimes politicians make promises and don't cover all the costs.
"There is no pay rise. We cannot predict another strike. If the workers want to do those things they'll simply do them. If they want to resort to violence, they'll resort to violence. It depends on the quality of the union leadership."
But Mtembu is determined and optimistic that South Africa's last tea plantation can be saved. "I would not have come back if I did not feel the company has potential. There's no point sitting at home with so much knowledge: let me assist. The company was once a star and can be a star again. Once you get this place going, it will be so beautiful."
That will require some 30m rand to be found – and quickly.
Ngoqo said the government was still working on a rescue package. "The department is trying to source funding so the farm can be running smoothly and undertaking harvesting. It is a priority. We don't want the people to lose their jobs."
Until then, Magwa is left clinging to past glories. Tonga reflected: "People say it's the best quality tea. Twenty years ago they got a trophy from France for the best tea in the world. That trophy is not there now. I don't know if it got lost or burned down with the office."




(Reuters) - Japanese police painstakingly search the river and shoreline for bodies of the missing a year after the huge earthquake and tsunami swept away large areas of the fishing town of Rikuzentakata.
Once renowned for a fine beach and seaside pine thicket nestled beneath mountains, the town is now synonymous with the destruction and widespread death wrought by the triple disaster.
What had been the town centre is mostly abandoned and dotted with piles of brown rubble and a ruined town hall. A single pine overlooking a becalmed sea is all that remains of the thicket.
The 16-metre (50-foot) wall of water that swallowed the city centre took the lives of 1,555 of its 24,240 residents. A total of 288 are still listed as missing in the town, 400 km (250 miles) northeast of Tokyo.
Police and the coast guard have for months been sending divers into the sea and draining rice paddies in the hope of finding bodies. Of late, they have responded to requests to search specific areas from families seeking closure.
"If we work hard, the deceased's spirits will hear our call. We are keeping our eyes wide open and looking carefully," said Kaname Endo, an officer from a destroyed seaside police station that lost five of its 12 staff.
On Friday, about 20 uniformed officers in gumboots and orange life vests, carrying shovels and buckets, combed muddy gutters near the port -- one of the few areas still to be searched. An excavator removed concrete slabs and swept mud out of a particularly deep gutter.
The morning search produces no results and the officers are told again they must be careful while proceeding.
Masahiko Saito, another officer, says search efforts turned up a corpse in the Kesen River in February and body parts in the fishing port. Most discoveries have been only of body parts or bones.
"Bodies might come up by the sea at a spot that was clear before, so we need to search many times," Endo said.
"It's not a matter of these bodies being dirty or smelly. We consider them as something that needs to be treated very carefully so that they can be returned to their family members."
While most of the debris that covered the city centre in the aftermath of the tsunami has been moved to designated locations, the main commercial area remains virtually deserted, dotted only by traffic lights and electricity poles. The sea, once obscured by buildings and houses, can be seen from hundreds of meters away amid the flattened landscape. The only sounds are the roar of building equipment and the chirping of birds.
Most activity now takes place in outlying areas left intact, with residents rehoused in temporary accommodation on higher ground and supermarkets set up in make-shift buildings. Town officials conduct business from temporary quarters away from the seafront.
WRECKED TOWN HALL
At the wrecked town hall, filthy books and furniture remain strewn about and red "X" marks are spraypainted on the walls in areas where searches for bodies have taken place.
A carpet of mud and wires dangling from the ceiling illustrate the force of the waves that rammed the building, sweeping away nearly 70 officials.
Mayor Futoshi Toba, who lost his wife to the tsunami, said the city had yet to start the rebuilding phase.
"We have been working hard to meet our immediate needs up until now. But we have compiled the city's reconstruction plan," he told Reuters from the make-shift town hall.
"From the start of the new fiscal year in April, I think we may be able to start working on rebuilding the city."
But stability, he said, brought greater public demands.
"After March 11, people were happy to be able to drink a sip of water. The next day, they were able to drink more water. Then they could eat a riceball, or have some soup," he said.
"But now, we have come to a halt. It takes time to build public housing since we have to open up space in the mountains and build roads, water pipes and bring power there. "...We have to act quickly and do things that people can see with their own eyes... We need to help those who are truly in trouble, and those who can figure out a way themselves must learn to be independent."
Recovering the bodies of lost family members is an essential step for coming to terms with their death, said Asami Maekawa, a professor of psychology at Tokyo Women's Christian University.
"In the process of mourning and accepting death, it is necessary to face the reality of death, and a very clear example of this is to face the dead body," she said.
"If people try to keep their loved ones' memories in their mind without going through the process of facing the reality, it is not a complete process, leaving their minds vulnerable."
But facing death and rebuilding shattered lives means many thousands struggling with depression and other health issues.
About 40 percent of surveyed residents in Rikuzentakata are suspected of having sleeping disorders. Nearly 6 percent showed signs of serious psychological problems, according to a study led by Kiyomi Sakata, a professor at Iwate Medical University.
In the meantime, the dogged search for bodies goes on.
"Some people said that we should stop searching since it has been a year. But there are bodies that have not been found yet," said police officer Endo. "We will go on until we know for sure that there will be no more."

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