CAPE TOWN, 1 September 2003 — Boysens Xole and Steven Swartbooi rise before dawn to stand on a street corner in Cape Town. They come to find work. “I’m looking for any kind of job. I can do anything... Many different kinds of job, plumbing, building,” says Swartbooi. “But sometimes there is nothing the whole week.”
These men, sitting smoking by the side of the road in the cold morning air, are just two of an estimated two to three thousand who congregate at more than 30 sites on Cape Town roadsides waiting for casual work. They occasionally get a handful of rand for a day’s hard labor, but for most of the time they go home empty handed.
They illustrate a growing problem for South Africa. Official estimates of the number of unemployed have remained obstinately high and are now around 30 percent, while among the most impoverished communities the proportion is much higher.
“For me it is a sign of how unhealthy our economy is,” said Charles Maisel, director of the Men on the Side of the Road Project - the country’s first nationwide effort to address the difficulties these job seekers face.
He adds that the scenes from Cape Town are mirrored all over the country. “There are almost 50,000 people a day who stand by the side of the road. All men, all black. “It reminds me of pictures of the great depression in America - It is an indication of a depressed economy.”
Maisel started working with the roadside job seekers in 1999, when he began cataloguing the waiting sites and speaking to the men about their predicament. He wants to help them organize into groups that will give some structure to the casual labor pool, reject bad employers and withstand harassment.
He hopes that the men will be able to find work more easily if they have equipment, and the project has set up a tool-lending operation to try to give them this head start. Some will take the tools with them to the roadside sites, others may set up their own businesses, doing carpentry or plumbing.
There are also plans to help establish a system that would certify recognized skills the men have. But, as project fieldworker Patrick Mbanga says, there is a long way to go.
Workers are often harassed by shopkeepers and residents who don’t like them loitering on their doorsteps, and are at the mercy of unscrupulous employers who frequently underpay them.
