Strikes Citichat 5 July 2002

CITICHAT 26/2002 - 5 July 2002


Strikes
Cry my beloved city!

It is just three weeks short of the CJP’s tenth anniversary. Over the last 3500 plus days my confidence in the future of the city has sometimes been dented but seldom if ever have I felt that I have been lying on the canvas listening to the count! Until Wednesday! The 3rd of July 2002 was truly the city’s lowest point in ten years. For ‘Joburg’, the city determined to become the African World Class City through years of huge commitment and hard work by so many, it was devastating in its mindlessness.

A national strike had been called by the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) for higher pay. Whilst Government had earlier agreed to an 8% increase, the Union wanted 10% and an increase in the minimum wages. The Union is entirely within their rights to strike and, personally, I support their minimum wage increase call although I believe that they should be offering to do something about productivity, but that’s another story.

The protest started quietly enough on Tuesday but during that night, going into the early hours of Wednesday morning, six to seven persons systematically trashed the city. Wednesday morning and city-goers were greeted with streets and sidewalks strewn with garbage, litter and filth – and smashed garbage bins. By nine o’clock, the union members were out in force marching through the city streets and gathering at Library Gardens. The Inner City Committee resolved two years ago that this venue could not be used for such gatherings because of the effect they have on business in the area with over-magnified speeches, singing and shouting. But the Trade Unions are clearly above the law or the authorities merely ignored their own agreements.

Passing under my office window a column of singing, chanting strikers was ‘escorted’ on either side by metro police cars. In front of the police cars a striker dodged on and off the sidewalk overturning and smashing refuse bins into the street, those that had escaped the previous night’s vandalism. The metro-police sat in their cars taking no action, unless, as happened whilst I was watching, a refuse bin ended in their path, then they sprung out of their vehicles to move the blockage to their progress.

Gandhi Square, the city’s best example of private/public collaboration, where private property owners had paid for a meaningful redevelopment of the public space used by hundreds of thousands as well as paying for its upkeep and maintenance, security, cleaning and greening, was wasted. All of the many concrete planters containing trees and shrubs were overturned and smashed to pieces That, of course was after the trees had been snapped in half and thrown all over the Square. The trees and shrubs carefully selected because of their association with the Gandhi name and what he stood for, the Olive for peace, the Pride of India, etc. Some bus shelters had their roofs torn off.

Not surprising that this is the Square where Metro Bus employees have refused to comply with signed agreements between their council and the property owners for years despite constant appeals at the highest levels. .Not surprising that one of these officials, some time ago when asked to comply with the agreement, taunted our staff to ‘call the metro police, they will do nothing because they belong to the same trade union.’

On Wednesday afternoon I checked in with the city’s CCTV Control Room. During the night before they had recorded six/seven men doing the damage, the police took four hours to respond to the calls and when they eventually arrived they spoke to the perpetrators then turned back and drove off. According to the control room one of the vehicles that the men were transported in was from the much vaunted council cleaning agency, Pikitup.

So where to from here? I have fiercely argued the rights of people to protest but for them to then behave like pigs compounded by our law enforcement agencies choosing (or instructed) to look the other way, is a bitter pill to swallow indeed. What about the rights of the vast majority of people in the city? Has the city the guts and in this case particularly, the political will, to protect our rights, to bring the perpetrators, their own employees, to book? And by perpetrators I mean not just those who can be identified on the CCTV but also police who did not do their duty. I am not one for “commissions of enquiry” but if the Council is to show leadership and commitment, then this is the route to follow. For, at the end of the day it isn’t the mess and direct damage that is the issue. It isn’t even the fact that people considering a move to the inner city will now be having second thoughts and tourists almost enticed to visit the city will be switched off by the photographs and TV images. It is the message that is sent out to the world that the city and the country is in the hands of anarchists, however small the numbers, aided and abetted by the very forces that are supposed to provide protection.

Gandhi Square? Well, there are not yet cameras covering the Square so we cannot identify the perpetrators however obvious their identity might be. But, is it really worth spending another twenty or thirty thousand rand to beautify the Square for the benefit of its tens of thousands of daily users just to have this happen again? After all the Union has its offices located on the Square! Maybe we should rather raise moneys to erect a plaque that will explain to World Summit visitors just why it is bare!

The upside of the week was of course the fun launch of JHB ART CITY. More about that next week when the gall has settled!

Regards, neil