Speaker 1:                           Early morning and special assignment leads labour inspectors into an obscure unnamed factory. This is one of Johannesburg's so called sweat shops, shady, hidden and staffed mostly by illegal immigrants who often work under appaling conditions. Manned entirely by Malawians, this factory manufactures roast peanuts and flavoured corn chips. Earlier this morning we had told the Department of Labour about a number of sweat shops around Johannesburg. This one the inspectors say is one of the worst they've ever seen.

Inspector:                           [inaudible 00:00:34] They are working with food, they don't have the ...

Speaker 3:                           The uniforms.

Inspector:                           The uniforms, okay? And then your machines are not covered with guards and then your housekeeping is very bad, you see?

Speaker 3:                           Yeah.

Speaker 1:                           Two months earlier our investigation had started in the same peanut factory. We infiltrated the premises with a spy camera. The workers complained that they often had to sleep here. On this day there'd been no time even to wash, but it didn't stop them from handling the food. Less than a metre away from sizzling oil stoves open wires stuck out of a faulty socket. None of the equipment had been cleaned, and workers had no uniforms. Instead they were covered in food, dust and sweat from head to toe.

Speaker 1:                           Lunch and tea breaks didn't seem to be encouraged, and then the boss came in. The workers introduced him as Anaz. We later discovered that his surname was Patel and that he also has a retail shop called Snack Tack. Street hawkers buy in bulk from Patel to sell to an unsuspecting public. Anaz was worried we were from the police, so he gave an order that we must be given 2 kg of peanuts. In exchange for the bribe we had to leave quickly, before we could check his workers illegal status.

Speaker 1:                           Close on the edge of Johannesburg central business district is Fordsburg. Streets awash with exotic sounds and the fragrance of curry and incense. Fordsburg is perhaps best known for the Oriental Plaza. This is where Indian shopkeepers were banished when the apartheid government cleaned up black spots in the white suburbs in the 1970s.

Speaker 1:                           The community took eviction in their stride and turned Fordsburg into a commercial mecca. While shopping centres have mushroomed throughout Johannesburg the Plaza is still where bargain hunters come for best buys.

Shop owner:                      At Cosmos we give you good prices, sir. Our card, please keep our business card. Please call again.

Customer:                           Thank you.

Shop owner:                      Thank you very much. Please come to Cosmos again, you're most welcome.

Speaker 1:                           But today the real story of Fordsburg lies in the streets beyond the bright façade of the restaurants and the Plaza. It's a story of exploitation, abuse and lawlessness.

Jounalist:                             Knock, knock [inaudible 00:03:43] hey ...

Speaker 1:                           Behind the steel door early one morning special assignment's undercover journalist detects signs of life. There's no company signboard or any indication that manufacturing might take place here.

Jounalist:                             Come closer.

Speaker 1:                           A sleepy Malawian worker has appeared from somewhere in the back.

Jounalist:                             9 O'clock?

Speaker 7:                           9 O'clock.

Jounalist:                             They're opening for you 9 o'clock?

Speaker 7:                           Okay.

Jounalist:                             Okay, did you work during the day yesterday?

Speaker 7:                           [inaudible 00:04:06]

Jounalist:                             You, you work during the day yesterday?

Speaker 7:                           Yeah.

Jounalist:                             From what time?

Speaker 7:                           6 o'clock, 9 o'clock morning.

Jounalist:                             Okay, so at least you got more money. You got overtime.

Speaker 7:                           Nothing, nothing.

Jounalist:                             No overtime?

Tom:                                      Whether you like it or not you have worked night shift. You see? Thereafter they leave that place then they lock there by the gate.

Speaker 1:                           Freedom of movement is an internationally recognised basic human right. But not if you work in this factory.

Jounalist:                             You don't work today?

Speaker 7:                           I work.

Jounalist:                             The whole day?

Speaker 7:                           Yeah, I work the whole day.

James:                                  I can't go to the police and complain because I don't have an ID.

Speaker 1:                           Trapped by their illegal status and exploited by the greed of their employers this is what life is like in a sweat shop. If you work in this factory you better pray a fire doesn't break out because no one has a key to get out when the managers leave at night. If you can't carry on through the night after a full day's work there are no sleeping quarters except for the floor or a worn out couch.

Jounalist:                             You got a small [inaudible 00:05:19] So it's knock off time now? Are you knocking off?

Speaker 7:                           No, we are starting now.

Jounalist:                             You want to start working?

Speaker 1:                           You eat wherever you find a spot among the piles of fabric that is if you can afford food on the meagre wages you earn. And right near bales of linen cigarettes can be lit on an ancient hot place.

Speaker 1:                           There's no remedy for free floating fabric fibres so you must contrive your own protective mask or else you can get very sick.

Tom:                                      We are feeling pain here inside the nose. Then if you take out the mucus, it mix with the blood, you see?

James:                                  According to the materials we are using now there is some sort we call the winter sheets. So it's almost everyone in that factory right now is coughing, when [inaudible 00:06:19] blowing it is mucus mixed with some sort of blood.

Jounalist:                             How many do you do per day?

Tom:                                      This one?

Jounalist:                             Yeah.

Tom:                                      400 and something.

Jounalist:                             400? Packing hey?

Tom:                                      Yeah.

Speaker 1:                           The packers have blisters on their fingers from stuffing linen into plastic packets that are too small. The work is repetitive and with the sheer bulk of the fabric it's back breaking.

James:                                  When we are packing, just packing [inaudible 00:06:50] take a bed sheet, two pillows, a bed cover, some sort of six or five pieces. So we pack it in a small plastic. We're forced to pack it so we feel the pain on our chest.

Tom:                                      If you are not physically fit you can't even manage to carry the things.

James:                                  When you are maybe just relaxing, just to stretch your body. He'll say "Hey what are you doing? Must do fast, fast the work. You see I've got a big order so you must make it fast, fast."

Speaker 1:                           This is the man who brings in the orders, tells them to work and pays them. His name is Mohamed Sadik. He prefers to hire foreigners but if needs be unsophisticated rural South African's who don't insist on their rights will do.

Mohamed Sadik:              I need now [inaudible 00:07:38] people because [inaudible 00:07:38] people is little bit stronger and quickly. Around the city, the city people is lazy.

Jounalist:                             Very lazy.

Mohamed Sadik:              Fabric cost R24. [inaudible 00:07:38] and two pillow cases.

Speaker 1:                           Special assignment's undercover reporter poses as a prospective factory owner. Sadik tells him what it takes to turn a profit in a factory like this.

Mohamed Sadik:              ... that means R26.50 your cost.

Speaker 1:                           On R26.50 if the fabric as he says costs R24.00, stitching and packing costs R2.50. No matter how cheap or expensive the fabric in this factory, labour is always R2.50.

Jounalist:                             Today you got money, it's payday isn't it?

Tom:                                      Yeah.

Jounalist:                             You got paid yesterday?

Tom:                                      No today.

Jounalist:                             They give you envelopes?

Tom:                                      No, only just cash in hand.

Jounalist:                             Cash in the hand? I mean you don't get it in envelopes or writing how much ...

Tom:                                      No, no no

Jounalist:                             They just give cash in the hand.

Tom:                                      They just call in one guy, one guy ... go and see there in the office.

Jounalist:                             And then you put your money in your pocket?

Tom:                                      Yeah.

Jounalist:                             And how do they know you have overtime? They tell you you work overtime? Or you have to tell them?

Tom:                                      Which means it's night shift.

Jounalist:                             Night shift is overtime.

Tom:                                      Sometimes we work [inaudible 00:09:08]

Speaker 1:                           And this despite the fact that Tom has upgraded his skills by teaching himself how to sew. As a packer he earned a R185.00 a week. One night shift was R20.00. Now that he can sew he sets his own income level but at 10c a sheet there are too few hours in the day to make a living.

Tom:                                      Sometimes I make 300 something, maybe 350, which means early in the morning also I should have to wake up early in the morning at least to get something. Maybe to make it maybe altogether it must be maybe 400 and sometimes 500. If I make it 500 which means it's the R50 I've made it.

James:                                  They pay me R150 ... that means a day is R25.00. So if I'm sick for 3 days, they cut R75 and they also give me R75. They don't say you are sick ... they say you're on holiday.

Speaker 1:                           When they don't collapse of exhaustion at the factory, home is a shared room in a hostel. Rent is a week's wages. Many camera shy immigrants live here. They don't bring any belongings from the factory for fear of theft. This uprooted life reminds them of how far away home really is and how they're letting their wives and children down back in Malawi.

Tom:                                      They're giving me a little money so how can I send home money? I have to pay rent as well. And what about food?

James:                                  I remember it's now 5 months after I phoned her. I phoned and what she told me ... [inaudible 00:10:49] was about to cry. She said: 'I want to see you. What are you doing there? What can your children do? We hope you are coming here with a car as you told me?' I said .... forget about a car, even a bicycle, forget about that. Just pray to God to give me life so we can meet in the next so, so ...

Speaker 1:                           Incredibly, some immigrants do bring their families to try and make a life together in the city. We find an entire office block crammed with foreigners working round the clock. On the fifth floor they invite us into one of their mini factories. It's about 8 o'clock at night. They tell us they make R1 to R3 per dress and they can make up to sixty dresses if they work more than eighteen hour days. The shop floor has also become the kitchen and the lounge and the bedroom. A newborn baby brings the number of people in the room to eight.

Speaker 1:                           Under apartheid black workers notoriously earned less than whites but since all South Africans now have the same rights entrepreneurs have found a new source of cheap labour. Undocumented migrant workers.

Speaker 1:                           Paulus Sithole is one such undocumented migrant. A Zimbabwean who came here in 1995 and worked illegally for five years.

Paulus Sithole:                  When I came here I quickly found a job at Bhadelia's. I was here for hardly two weeks. I thought he was a nice guy because it was my first job here. We signed some legal documents, we were given rules like no smoking inside. My first wages were R125 then it increased to R130 then R140 and in the end R150.

Speaker 1:                           This is where Paulus got work in 1995. The factory belongs to Hassan Bhadelia. Among other ventures Bhadelia manufactures bed linen and runs a wholesale enterprise. In those days many South Africans worked at Bahdelia's manufacturing too. Mary Ntako was one of them. A seamstress, she even trained other staff but says she earned less than her trainees who were all foreigners.

Mary Ntako:                       At the beginning of 1998 we toi toi'd. We needed money but we never got it. We quit and when we demanded money for our services he told us he didn't have it. He then said he didn't want to work with South Africans anymore. He wanted to work with immigrants because he too was an immigrant.

Paulus Sithole:                  He fired some of them and chose a few to stay behind. I was one of them. There were eight people left.

Mary Ntako:                       He didn't close the firm, it was functioning day and night. Indians worked during the day. They went in to do the sewing, and at night the boys who made the fibre went in.

Speaker 1:                           Many entrepreneurs resented the new labour laws and vibrant trade unions after 1994. Like many others Bhadelia Manufacturers seemed to go underground. He closed shop for a while and when he reopened he hired mostly immigrants, discouraging protest allowing labour standards to slip in favour of profit.

Paulus Sithole:                  The machines were illegal and a lot of people got hurt. When you get hurt and you need to stay at home, they wouldn't pay you.

Speaker 1:                           Bhadelia Manufacturers make many labels, among them Mams Linen. These are the same goods we found first in Mohamed Sadik's factory. It seems business prospered so that Bhadelia helped others like Sadik set up satellite factories. Labour malpractice was thus merely replicated from Fordsburg to surrounding suburbs with workers little more than extensions of the machines they operate.

Paulus Sithole:                  If I get a job where the money is not so good but the working environment is good that would be fine.

Speaker 1:                           We take our findings and suspicions of malpractice to the Department of Labour.

Inspector:                           The fact that you are all able and capable and willing to do this exercise at this time of the morning, and to be out there to protect workers in whatever way is possible.

Speaker 1:                           All inspection teams strikes simultaneously. At the factories we target only one owner is present at this time of the morning. For the next 2 hours Mohamed Sadik faces a grilling about everything in his factory. From the lack of soap to wash hands, to faulty plugs, to hazardous cabling, to the obvious violation of his workers rights.

Inspector:                           If you just work till 6 o'clock where do you sleep?

Speaker 15:                        Just sleeping any place.

Inspector:                           Every night?

Speaker 15:                        Yeah.

Inspector:                           Here?

Speaker 15:                        Yeah.

Man with glasse:              No blankets.

Speaker 15:                        This one. We use this one.

Man with glasse:              You just use this thing as a blanket?

Speaker 15:                        Yeah.

Man with glasse:              And then you sleep with it?

Speaker 15:                        Yeah.

Man with glasse:              And then you start at six and finish at nine?

Speaker 15:                        Six. When we start at 6 o'clock we finish at 12 o'clock.

Man with glasse:              At night?

Speaker 15:                        Yeah.

Man with glasse:              And then, how do you go home? You can't go home, you have to sleep here?

Speaker 15:                        Yeah, just sleeping here.

Man with glasse:              Until he comes and opens ...

Speaker 15:                        Yeah, and we starting 9 o'clock again.

Man with glasse:              Again? You again?

Speaker 15:                        Yeah.

Speaker 1:                           We decide to move one around the corner to Hassan Bhadelia's factory for comment. Sadik is after all Bhadelia's supplier. This morning inspectors battled to get in but by the time we arrive they've gained access.

Speaker 15:                        Mr. [inaudible 00:24:46]? No he's in Sandton.

Speaker 1:                           Business must be booming. Bhadelia is currently expending into the warehouse next door but the man himself is illusive today. When our cameras get inside all operations have seized. Machines are dead and workers have all but disappeared from the premises.

Inspector:                           Have you interviewed employees already?

Man with blue h:              The employees are all illegal and they don't want to talk to us.

Inspector:                           They don't want to talk to us?

Man with gray s:               Are they local people?

Man with blue h:              They are not local people, they are foreigners.

Man with gray s:               All of them.

Speaker 1:                           Bhadelia is also not at his oldest factory on the other side of Fordsburg. None the less the scrutiny continues. As at all the other factories safety seems to be his last concern. Fire escapes are blocked and there's no running water.

Speaker 1:                           In Bhadelia's absence several warnings must be issued. In the new factory a raised work floor is even shut down.

Man with blue h:              There should have been an emergency exit. There should have been fire extinguishers in place, there is absolutely nothing.

Speaker 1:                           What did you find in terms of the fire extinguishers in this place?

Man with blue h:              The fire extinguishers have not been serviced since 1994.

Speaker 1:                           Finally, Bhadelia arrives. Shocked at the morning's concerted onslaught on his entire operation he first wants to speak to his managers. A short briefing later and he's happy to tell us he will fully comply with the inspection report and get his house in order. He will even invite inspectors back regularly and work with the Department of Labour to fix the faults, but he's clearly not thrilled.

Hassan Bhadelia:              I am from Pakistan, I am from foreign country, and I can work in Pakistan as well. But why I'm sitting here because I can create more jobs and my better life is here as well, and a better business here. But with all this labour problems and labour unions which, in their laws which owner doesn't have any right to say I'm sorry to say if it runs like this we have to shut down and go home.

Speaker 1:                           But at 27 West Street workers don't have the easy option of going home. They've slaved away all night, having earned barely enough to feed themselves today. Nonetheless inspectors take a hard line.

Man with blue h:              So when did it expire? Did you renew it?

Speaker 1:                           A factory deemed unsuitable is shut down until improvements can be made. The most radical response of the day happens within an hour of the inspector's arrival. The notorious peanut factory is summarily shut down.

Inspector:                           So what we're gonna do here, we're gonna make a walk through inspection, and we're gonna check all the necessary documents that is required. So there is no covering of this machinery, see? [crosstalk 00:24:46]

Man with blue h:              Where are you from?

Worker with Bla:              Malawi.

Man with blue h:              Malawi?

Worker with Bla:              Sometimes we come 6 o'clock.

Man with blue h:              6 o'clock in the morning?

Worker with Bla:              In the morning. After that ...

Man with blue h:              And then what time do you finish working?

Worker with Bla:              We knock off, sometimes we sleeping here.

Man with blue h:              [inaudible 00:21:02]

Inspector:                           Very unbearable actually, it's unacceptable in terms of environmental regulation. Housekeeping it's very bad. It's very bad.

Inspector:                           You can't continue working in this work environment, okay? So, and then, this is a contravention notice of the environmental regulation.

Worker with Bla:              Yeah.

Inspector:                           Can you sign? Here. You can just sign here. Just put your signature. We are going to switch off everything here. Can you come and show me?

Speaker 1:                           Minutes after the inspectors have left factory boss Anaz Patel arrives. The factory workers describe him as the owner and the man who pays them their slave wages of less than R200 a week. He says the factory belongs to his cousin.

Jounalist:                             But what is your relation to the factory?

Anaz Patel:                         So I'm just a customer here.

Jounalist:                             Do you buy that?

Anaz Patel:                         No, no they [inaudible 00:22:05] some peanuts for me whatever and then I go and sell it ...

Jounalist:                             So you buy from him?

Anaz Patel:                         Yeah.

Jounalist:                             Are you a customer?

Anaz Patel:                         Yeah.

Speaker 1:                           Back in Fordsburg it's lunch time. For the first time today the Department of Labor's inspectors can sit down and collate their findings.

Man with gray s:               Well firstly, let me say that I'm completely horrified by the things that one saw there. I have always known that we have employers who don't comply with the legislation, but I did not think that it was to that extent.

Inspector:                           I'm sure those of us that have animals don't even treat them that way. And so a combination of all those regulations being violated forces us not to ignore anything or not to take the sympathetic approach.

Man with gray s:               Sometimes we have scarce skills that are brought in here by foreign workers, and we need them but they must be here legally and if they are to be here illegally and then their rights are violated law must apply.

Inspector:                           One doesn't want to see people loosing their jobs under any circumstances, but surely if people are being abused the way that we saw this morning, and all their rights are being violated and employers are creating wealth out of the suffering of other people, then I don't believe we can sit back and unfortunately in the process of dealing with these there may be workers that will be repatriated back to their countries. There may be others that could obtain work permits, we don't know, but we cannot leave the situation as it is and we need to deal with it.

Speaker 1:                           Hours after the raid Sadik shut his factory down. Tom and James are ready to leave anyway. After years of living here everything they own fits into a few boxes and suitcases in a friends garage.

James:                                  So I was here ... I spent here two years. In these two years I've lost my everything. Lost my health here.

Tom:                                      I have sold my body for money because of the hard work there in the factory. I am just feeling pain in my whole body.

James:                                  So I think maybe it's fine, maybe I can go back home and see what can I do. Maybe if I come back again, maybe I will have luck. One day, yeah everything will be changed, because you know [inaudible 00:24:28] it's hard but at long last you get something.