Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 6: Down at the dumpsleadership has nevertheless kept its side of the bargain in terms of policing dumppicking which is seen as “an attack on the community”. For its part, following a fire inthe settlement, DSW allowed a limited number of people on site to collect materialsto rebuild their shacks.The contract, meanwhile, was handed back to Kelly. Conditions according to one ofthe site cleaners, who did not wish to be named, are wretched: “The dump is a filthyplace. It has gas and dust. … There is a high number of people working at the dumpwho have died of Tb [although] we can’t say for sure it is the dump. … We were 20when I started in 2001. More than 10 have died.” 95 Kelly is seen as indifferent tothese deaths because it contributes nothing to the families for the funerals and didnot respond to requests to set up a funeral scheme. Workers are also fearful of raisinghealth issues or asking why so many people die: “You can’t talk like that. You will loseyour job. They tell you not to give out information when they hire you.” Workersare entitled to limited sick leave but are clearly reluctant to expose themselves to thepossibility of losing their jobs. Wages at Bisasar Road have been paltry at R9 an hour,but were due to be raised to R14 an hour, still low by comparison with permanentmunicipal employment.Zikode acknowledges that people are also dying in the settlement. “In the middle classcommunity they talk about cancer, and asthma and people dying.” But this cannotbe discussed in the settlement because there are too many more immediate threats tolife than the long term effect of breathing poisoned air. People die by fire “and no-onecares”. One child was killed by a rat, which may have come from the dump or bredin the refuse piled up in the settlement. The people saw it as the consequence of themunicipality’s refusal to collect refuse from the settlement. Meanwhile, the landfill isstill seen as a source of livelihoods and resources.The workers suffer the double hazard of conditions on the landfill and at home. Itshould be noted that DSW is clearly the real employer. It controls the work on the siteand even who is recruited. What is outsourced is responsibility for legal compliance anddisciplining workers along with low wages and non-unionised insecurity. The brokeris thus a function of the employer’s interest. In taking on this role as a communityproject, it is not clear that KRDC or Mzombe fully recognised the contradictions.95 Tb may be used here to mean any respiratory disease or it may be that conditions on the dump worsen actualTb.- 150 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation