month deducted from their below minimum wages of R500 (US$71) per month.150 The owner of another farm in Weipe related how the Department of Labor, investigating health conditions in his compound after what was believed at first to be a case of meningitis, learned that he was deducting for housing that did not meet the prescribed minimum standard. He now only deducts for electricity.151 Section 8(2)(d) of the Sectoral Determination permits an employer to make a deduction for accommodation only if no deduction is made by the employer for electricity, water or other services. We found deductions for electricity cards were common even when employers were also deducting money for accommodation. Section 8(10) of the Sectoral Determination stipulates: “A deduction of any goods purchased by the employee must specify the nature and quantity of the goods and the amount that correlates with a proof of purchase.” The Zimbabwean who works in a farm store just off the Tshipise road complained that he was not allowed to obtain a record of store purchases for which the farmer made deductions from his pay. “He deducts what I get from the store. He gives no proof. He writes down in a book what you take. You’re not allowed to see that book.”152 Farm workers to whom Human Rights Watch spoke on a Weipe farm said the owner was making a compulsory 10 percent deduction each month from workers’ wages, which he then paid them back at the end of the year. The employer does not have the right to make a compulsory deduction for savings. Moreover, the employer is required by section 75 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act to pay interest “on any amount due and payable in terms of the Prescribed Rate of Interest Act, 1975, to any person to whom a payment should have been made.” Deductions for workers’ life insurance are permitted, under section 8(7)(a), only if the employers receive the farm workers’ written request, as stipulated in section 8(1)(c) of the Sectoral Determination. A Vivo farm owner told us that Zimbabweans have been specifically excluded from any private life or funeral insurance for the past two or three years, so in November 2005, after losing four of his 21 permanent workers to AIDS during the year, he made contributions to a life and funeral insurance scheme compulsory for the mainly South African workers on his farm. “The tradition is that the 150 Human Rights Watch interview with a Zimbabwean worker, Weipe, April 23, 2006. Human Rights Watch interview with a white commercial farmer, Weipe, April 26, 2006. 152 Human Rights Watch interview with a Zimbabwean worker, Tshipise, April 30 2006. 151 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOLUME 18, NO. 6(A) 42