VOLUNTEER SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME: THE TWO-FACED ATTITUDE BEHIND EXPLOITATIVE LABOUR

We need a new language to put words to something many South Africans have seen but could not name.

The Privileged – both black and white – have said “prayers” and raised the hands and voices to the heavens to God to save undocumented immigrants. They have fled communities they stayed in for years to be trapped in deportation stations. They were now “going home.”

The responses from the anti-illegal immigrants movements were immediate: How is it normal for an undocumented person to live and work in the country for years and still remain poor?

That question is not about one family, factory or farm. It is about a pattern. It is about the callousness of African states. A two-faced attitude driven by greed and convenience that cuts across race, class, and sector. And when we do not name it, it hardens into what people are now calling “volunteer slavery of the undocumented” — work without progress, without dignity, and without legal protection.

In a country already cut by race, class and inequality, illegal immigration makes that wound deeper. Because it exposes who benefits, who pays, and who pretends not to see.

PROFIT WITHOUT PROGRESS

There are things that makes the plight of undocumented immigrants to arouse impatience and anger

Nothing to show for years of labour.

If a person – illegal immigrant or not documented – works full-time for years and still lives in a shack, still wears the same clothes, and still has nothing saved, then that was not a wage. It was a survival allowance. Wages are supposed to move a life forward. These did not.

Some of us are products of the poor working class. We know the suffering and misery.

The contrast of two worlds. We see spotless bakkies. Leather couches. Stanley cups. Woolworths bags. Next to workers living in poverty. The business grows. The workers do not. That picture breaks something in people because it tells the truth without words.

“My favourite workers.”

That phrase reveals the trick. A personal relationship was used to keep them loyal. But no legal relationship was used to protect them. No contract. No UIF. No raise. Just “favourite.”

This is not only farms. You see it with domestic workers in Sandton. Builders on estates in Midrand. Waiters in Cape Town restaurants. Cleaners in Durban malls. Packing staff in retail chains. Nurses in private clinics paid cash.

The formula is the same: keep African labour cheap, keep it quiet, and call it “helping.”

THE TWO FACES: GREED IN PRIVATE, HUMANITY IN PUBLIC

This is the core of it. The two-faced attitude.

In private, the law is ignored for convenience.

Hire people without permits because they are vulnerable. Vulnerable workers do not go to the CCMA. They do not ask for contracts. They do not report R800 for a 60-hour week. They are grateful for “a job.”

The employer tells themselves: “At least, you have a job.”
That is not charity. That is a business model built on legal vulnerability. It is slavery.

When your business makes millions and the person making it possible cannot afford rent, you are not employing. You are extracting. Thus is abusive enslavement. You are using their fear of deportation as leverage to pay less.

In public, when the law is enforced, it becomes a “humanitarian crisis.”

The same people, or their peers, post prayers and phone radio talk shows. They unleash human rights campaigns. They cry about children in the rain. They call March And March “xenophobic.” They point at the shacks and say, “Look how cruel this is.”

But they never ask: Who created the conditions for that shack? Who benefits from slavery wages?
Who paid wages that could never buy a brick? Who kept someone for 5 – 10 years and never moved them one step forward? Or advised them to get proper papers.

That is the selfishness. Use the person when the law is loose. Mourn the person when the law is applied.

It is goody-goody in public. Greedy in private.

WHY WE CALL IT “VOLUNTEER SLAVERY”

Slavery was forced labour, no pay, no choice. “Volunteer slavery” is different, but it rhymes.

No legal status = no bargaining power.

The worker “volunteers” to accept abuse because the alternative is deportation or going home with nothing. Consent under threat is not consent.

No upward mobility. 5 – 10 years. No UIF. No skills training. No housing improvement. No savings. The job is a treadmill. You run, the family is warm, the factory makes money, farm grows, you stay in the same place.

Moral cover. “They are like family.” “Siyafana Sonke. We all Africans.” “At least they have shelter and food.” That language hides an economic relationship. It turns an employer into a savior, and the worker into a charity case.

This is what the anti-illegal immigrants marches are really saying: If your business is better, the people who built it must, first, be legal in this country.

Netcare nurses must live in better homes. Woolworths or Checkers packers must afford better houses. Farm workers must not live in shacks next to a farmhouse with a pool and a jacuzzi.

If your profit depends on their labour, their life should improve with yours. That is not radical. That is basic decency.

THE RACE TRAP: THIS IS ABOUT CLASS, NOT JUST COLOR

It is white pepole who largely own the mines, farms, factories and beautiful homes. But this neither singles out “white people” or play the race card. And yes, there are many white employers who have done this.

But there are also black business owners who underpay Zimbabweans in construction. Indian restaurant owners who pay cash-in-hand. Coloured contractors who keep Mozambicans off the books.

To make this only about race lets the real problem off the hook: greed.

Xenophobia is real and must be condemned. People have been attacked, killed, and scapegoated. That is a crime.

But class exploitation is also real. And when we reduce everything to “white vs black,” or black versus black, we miss the engine: the employer-employee power imbalance and the struggle for law enforcement.

Race and class are often the language we use to describe it. Greed is the fuel that keeps it running.

Illegal immigration makes this worse because it adds another layer. It cuts into South Africa’s racial divisions. It becomes: “foreigners are taking jobs” vs “you are exploiting foreigners.” Both can be true at the same time. And the privileged few who run capitalist-sponsored NGOs benefit from both arguments staying loud.

WHO BENEFITED? THE PRIVILEGED FEW

Let’s name them.

The farmer who pays R800 and sells produce at Woolworths prices.
The restaurant owner who saves R50,000 a month by not registering staff.
The estate developer who finishes 6 months early because undocumented labor works 12-hour days.
The domestic employer who says “she’s part of the family” but pays her less than the gardener.

They benefit directly. Then they go on radio or Facebook and speak about “human rights” and “dignity.” Siyafana Sonke released media statements and are all over radio and TV.

That is the two-faced attitude. Private extraction. Public compassion.

It is the same as companies that post billion-rand profits and then ask government for tax breaks “to create jobs.” The jobs are created. The people stay poor.

THE LAW, THE BACK PAY, AND THE WAY FORWARD

The anger at what also happens to undocumented immigrants is justified. Years of working for peanuts not “a little help.” It is a life of sacrifice.

If we are serious, here is what justice looks like. Not pity. Law.

Enforce the Law on Employers First. Raids cannot only target workers. March And March must not take the law into their own hands. They must do joint audits or just be observers: Home Affairs + Department of Labour + Police Services.

• Fine businesses that emoloy undocumented immigrants.
• Publish names of repeat offenders.
• Create a back-pay fund. If someone worked 5 – 10 years with no contract, calculate what was lost and make a claim process.

When it costs more to break the law than to follow it, behavior changes.

Regularize Status So Exploitation Stops. People cannot demand rights if they fear arrest.

1. Fast, clear work permits for sectors that actually need labour: agriculture, hospitality, construction.
2. A firewall: if an undocumented worker reports abuse, they are not automatically deported. The employer is investigated first.
3. UIF and COIDA for all workers. If you contribute labor, you contribute to the system and the system protects you.
   Regularization removes the excuse: “I can pay you less because you have no papers.”
4. Tie Profit to Living Standards. Why can the family home or farmhouse be renovated and the worker’s room still be a stinky shack?

• Sector agreements: Agriculture, retail, health must include housing and transport standards in licensing.
• Tax incentives: Businesses that provide decent accommodation or housing subsidies get relief.
• Public pressure: Companies that post record profits while workers live in poverty must face consumers and shareholders.

Stop Using Humanity as a Shield! We can do two things at once: Enforce immigration law, and at same time, treat people with dignity while we do it.

That means no children in the rain during raids. It means social workers present. It means shelters, not cages.

But it also means we stop calling 5 – 10 years in a shack “kindness.” It wasn’t. It was cheap labor.

THE HARD TRUTH ABOUT MARCH AND MARCH

This is why March And March resonated.

It is not only about undocumented and “illegal immigrants” It is about a state and an economy that allowed this to become normal.

It is about communities watching public services collapse while employers get rich off unprotected labor.
It is about South Africans and documented migrants competing for R80 a day.
It is about the feeling that the law only applies to the poor.

When government does not enforce the law, people enforce their frustration. Sometimes in marches. Sometimes in violence. Both are symptoms of the same failure: the state outsourced its responsibility to employers, and employers outsourced their conscience to Facebook prayers and the Human Rights Commission.

FROM PITY TO JUSTICE

“Cries for human rights and prayers” do not pay rent. They do not buy school shoes. They do not build a house.

Justice looks like this:

Back pay calculated and paid. If you benefited for 5 – 10 years, you owe for 5 – 10 years.
Employers prosecuted who broke labour law, regardless of race.
Workers given a path — either to legal status with rights, or to assisted voluntary return with dignity.
A new standard: If you profit from someone’s labour, their life must get better while they are with you.

We cannot call it “slavery” and then hire the next two men the same way next month.
We cannot post about tired workers and then complain when people demand enforcement.

The rule must be simple: My helper must have more because I have more. My worker must live better because my business did better.

That is not charity.
That is not xenophobia.
That is what a lawful, decent economy looks like.

And until we get there, the two faces will remain. Greed in the back office. And calls for Human Rights ZA.