How can labour tenants protect themselves against losing the land? What are the legal rights of labour tenants?

What Does the Law?

A labour tenant is someone who pays their ‘rent’ with labour. In other words they work for the farmer in exchange for using the land for grazing or crops. The biggest problem is when the farmer ends the contract and evicts the tenant. The Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Act protects labour tenants in certain ways. The Land Tenure Security Bill will replace the Land Reform Tenure Act when it is passed.

(See: Possible repeal of ESTA and the Land Tenure Security Bill)

The Act says that:

• Labour tenants have the right to use the land they occupy if they continue to provide labour for the farmer
• Labour tenants can only be evicted by a court order granted in terms of the Act
• A labour tenant who is 65 years or older may not be evicted for not providing labour
• If a labour tenant is evicted through a court order, the owner must pay the labour tenant compensation for improvements and crops
• A labour tenant has the right to acquire the land he or she has worked and lived on. This can be negotiated with the farmer, with the assistance of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform.

The land: If you have worked for the farmer for the agreed time, you must be given the same amount of time to live free on the land. The farmer can’t give you notice. For example, if you worked for the farmer from January to June, you can stay free on the land from July until December. The farmer can’t give you notice in September. The notice period can only start after December, unless you do something seriously wrong.

Evictions: Labour tenants can only be evicted in specific circumstances such as:

• if they breach the contract with the landowner and stop providing labour
• if there is a complete breakdown of the relationship between the labour tenant and the farmer
• where there is a real danger of damage to the farmer or property
• where the likely harm to the farmer is greater that the likely harm to the labour tenant
• if the farmer urgently needs the land for development which the Land Claims Court believes is more important than the rights of the labour tenant

In all cases, the farmer must apply directly to the Land Claims Court and not to the Magistrate’s Court to evict labour tenants. Labour tenants must get 14 days notice that the farmer is going to apply for an eviction order. This gives the labour tenants a chance to oppose the eviction in court.

Alternative land: The Land Claims Court can order that a person is given alternative land if they cannot come to an agreement with the farmer about staying on the same land.