A new Danish documentary, Bitter Grapes, reveals apartheid-like conditions in the South African wine industry. Vineyards in the beautiful Western Cape. Delicious-looking red wine poured into a glass. Happy consumers shopping for wine in supermarkets. Then the image changes to the conditions of the farm workers and the contrast is immense. Award-winning Danish journalist and documentarist Tom Heinemann’s Bitter Grapes was broadcast on Danish national television last week. It documents how farm workers work 12-hour shifts, for which they are paid as little as R100, which is below the South African minimum wage. Migrant workers from Lesotho and Zimbabwe are paid significantly less because they are desperate for work, which helps keep wages low. The film also portrays an industry in which workers fall ill from the pesticides that are used in the vineyards. They receive no training in the use of the pesticides and do not use masks or other protective gear, other than a facial cream that ...
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