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  • Essay / Article by Barrientos and Rossouw: Contract experiences...

    The workforce in the South African fruit sector has been increasingly reduced, meaning that an increasing number of workers are now accepting a indirect employment with entrepreneurs. Their employment is very precarious, with little or no legal or social protection, which can have detrimental effects on their well-being. Arguably, contract work involves a greater degree of flexibility through the casualization of work where labor is employed on a short-term or part-time basis directly by the employer. This is part of “outsourcing” of employment, in which work is given to external contractors or agents. This can be done through labor-only contractors who are solely responsible for hiring workers, or a contractor hired to complete a specific task. In the latter case, the third-party contractor is responsible for both hiring and paying the workers and the producer no longer has a direct employment relationship with the workers (Kritzinger, Barrientos & Rossouw