Talks aimed at resolving the violent strike by security guards deadlocked again on Tuesday, when employers and the guards’ negotiators could not agree on certain terms.
The talks ended at 3pm when the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) demanded that the guards should not be disciplined for misconduct, but employers rejected this.
”The parties have failed to reach agreement at the latest round of talks due to the employers’ organisations being unable to meet Satawu’s demand not to take disciplinary action against Satawu members who are involved in serious forms of misconduct and criminal activities,” said Steve Friswell, spokesperson for the South African National Security Employers’ Association.
The current round of talks started last Friday.
”The Satawu strike has been marred by intimidation, violence, murder and damage to property,” Friswell said in a media statement.
He said Satawu denied that its members were responsible for the violence.
While employers believe in the right to strike, they ”cannot condone the use of terror tactics used by Satawu to enforce their strike demands”, Friswell said.
Employers reserved the right to take disciplinary action against guards implicated in violence.
About 350 000 non-Satawu members are not striking but are often prevented from working by strikers, he said. ”It is socially irresponsible for Satawu to continue the strike when it is resulting in anarchy.
”The employers therefore demand that Satawu call off the strike action and publicly state that they in no way condone or promote these violent acts against non-striking employees.”
Friswell said employers are willing to negotiate with Satawu, but not in the present circumstances.
On Tuesday, police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades to disperse striking guards who went on the rampage in central Cape Town and outside Parliament.
Several injuries were reported and dozens of shop windows were broken, goods looted and cars damaged as about 5 000 strikers made their way to Parliament to hand over a memorandum in support of wage and working-conditions demands.
At least one journalist covering the march, held under Satawu’s banner, was assaulted by protesters.
After handing the memorandum to officials at Parliament, the group started breaking up, running in different directions, pursued by police.
Several shots were fired and police were seen making arrests as a helicopter circled overhead. Further shots from around the city centre could be heard for some time afterwards.
An eyewitness said strikers running down Buitenkant Street had tried to set a car alight, and police fired rubber bullets. One marcher, struck by what appeared to be a rubber bullet, ”went down like a ton of bricks”, he said.
A South African Press Association reporter at the scene said there were hardly any shops without broken windows in the two blocks of Roeland Street from the entrance to Parliament.
Marchers, many armed with steel pipes, sticks and pick-axe handles, ripped windscreen wipers and mirrors off cars parked in Plein Street outside Parliament, and smashed windows of cars and shops, grabbing merchandise.
Some used uprooted road signs to vandalise cars, while others kicked in doors. Their fellow marchers ignored them. Others were seen making threatening gestures at bystanders; one dragged his finger across his throat, pointing at security staff on duty at one of the entrances to Parliament.
”We’ll be back,” marchers told a shop owner as they shattered his shop window.
The violence took place despite Tony Ehrenreich’s plea for marchers to be disciplined. Ehrenreich is the secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions in the Western Cape.
Only metres away from the platform on which he stood, glass from broken shop and vehicle windows lay mixed with litter from overturned waste bins.
Earlier on Tuesday, Satawu said the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration had called on the guards to halt their month-long protest. — Sapa