Samwu: Strike coverage exaggerated

The SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) has accused the media of exaggerating in its coverage of a violent protest in the Cape Town city centre.

"Samwu has noted press coverage on trashing and the comments of media commentators, and others who have used terms like 'mayhem' and 'rampage' to describe the situation in municipalities where rubbish has been spilled onto the streets," the union's provincial secretary, Andre Adams, said in a statement on Wednesday.

"However, the reaction of the media, and sadly some of our political allies has been misguided, and exaggerated.

"This press statement is an attempt to put the record straight and we would ask the media to respect its contents and not use it selectively to distort what Samwu is saying."

Samwu protesters were seen looting from vendors, setting plastic bins on fire and smashing the windows of vehicles as they protested for higher wages in the Cape Town city centre on Tuesday.

The city's main shopping avenue, Adderley Street, was left covered with litter and burned out bins after the strike.

Adams said there had been "some trashing on some of the marches".

Marshalls and leaders had asked workers to refrain from this activity, but "none of this has been reported".

"Many of our members are invisible to the public. They clean the streets at night, and gather in the trash that the public expects to be taken away, and often at great human cost.

"Our members do the work that many of the commentators would never dream of doing.

"Maybe the commentators and others should spend just one shift with the city night cleaners and open their eyes to the appalling conditions they have to endure."

Adams said municipal workers often had to collect dead animals "and worse" on the roadside.

"We unblock sewers, we fix water pipes in the freezing cold, respond to emergencies and much more besides.

"And yet the gap between these vital workers and the those who are supposed to manage service delivery is as wide as it was under apartheid.

"When a street cleaner upturns a rubbish bag, does it not occur to journalists and commentators that this might be an act of defiance, of one for being visible, of not being taken for granted."

Part of any industrial action is to make visible what it is that workers do, to force an awareness on the public of the value of these workers, Adams said.

"As a union we do not condone this action, but we at least try and understand it," he said, adding that the union "can not help thinking that the reaction to trashing is a very class based response".

"In poor communities and the townships our members have been receiving massive public support.

"We are not surprised that organisations fighting against privatisation and for service delivery have supported our strike, because they know what it is like not to have regular community cleaning services or to wait forever for water and other services."

The police meanwhile, said the actions by some striking municipal workers over these past days had "drifted into an unacceptable conduct".

"When individuals or groups go on a rampage by damaging property and intimidating people, police will act accordingly to bring those perpetrators to book and ensure that peace and stability is restored," national police spokesman Colonel Vishnu Naidoo said.

"In at least seven areas, the behaviour of some people was atrocious and this behaviour warranted police to arrest a total of 85 people for crimes such as public violence, malicious damage to property and theft."