South Africa’s most recent national population census, conducted during February – March 2022 was preceded by one last held in 2011. According to Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) the data collected is meant to be used for “planning, policy formulation and evidence-based decision making” (http://census.statssa.gov.za). Budget allocations across local, provincial and national government are also based on census data collected.
Early in January, thousands of prospective fieldworkers were recruited by StatsSA to collect data for this census. This caused great excitement and expectation among the unemployed youth countrywide. Unfortunately, excitement soon gave way to frustration, when the online training process was frequently interrupted by loss of network connectivity and software malfunction. “No”, was the assurance from Field Operations Officers, cum trainers, “this is merely a temporary hiccup and not a cause for concern…”
It has been reported that many candidates abandoned training before the end of the two -week crash course, leaving a diminished pool of candidates. Of these, up to thirty percent required re training. This drawback caused a staggered generation of employment contracts and appointment of fieldworkers and fieldwork supervisors. Appeals to Field Operations Officers and District Operational Centres were met with a standard response of, “…escalated to head office.” Thus, understaffed and dependent on failing software, the National Census got underway around the third/fourth of February, only to screech to halt a week later due to the collapse of the online system. It was only later learned that the technical problems were resultant from the change in network provider coupled with incompatible software applications.
The official end of the census project arrived, with precious little data retained on the servers and frustrated field staff ready to throw in the towel. When the inevitable offer to extend contracts came, there were many who declined because of the chaos they perceived the project to be. Lured into a longer service period, workers became restless for a definite pay date, since they now had to work for a longer period. The delay in payment caused field workers countrywide to raise the outcry until StatsSA began making payments in mid-March. However, most workers were dissatisfied claiming that they were not renumerated according to the daily rate stated in the employment contract, while others were completely skipped during the March pay runs with no salary advice slips to track their earnings. Another extension was offered as consolation.
During this time, workers were recruited to be redeployed to the Western Cape, where data collection was severely hampered due to a lack of field staff. At the time, it was reported that many Western Cape respondents were unaware of the National Household Census when fieldworkers visited their homes late in April. Local Field Operations Officers shared how they battled to have fieldworkers and fieldwork supervisors appointed in the province, going as far as the national office to plead their case; to no avail. Of the few workers who were appointed, most declined the extension of contracts beyond the initial expiry date. Hence, the need to co-opt workers from other provinces. With the assistance of these co-opted workers, the Western Cape StatsSA office was at last able to record some measurable progress.
After a gruelling three-month project, it would be expected that field staff would go back home to a well-deserved rest. But not with an employer such as Statistics SA. Taking off the green cap and bib at the end of this project, workers had to don battle gear to demand all that the employer had committed to provide.
Casual workers across South Africa are involved in similar struggles daily. Linking up with trade unions or forming worker committees at workplaces can break the isolation of their struggles and contribute to raising the demands of workers on a wider scale.