Cape Town – While the Cape Town city council was winding up its business for the year at the Civic Centre on Thursday, fired Cape Town MyCiTi drivers clashed with police officers.
A large group of police officers in riot gear had formed a cordon in front of the group, News24 reported. A man was arrested following an exchange of rocks and stun grenades after police had told them to move back.
The group were moving towards the taxi rank at Cape Town station when a few rocks were thrown in the direction of the police, who immediately fired a number of stun grenades.
When the police charged up the steps, the group disappeared in the stun grenade smoke into the busy taxi rank.
The fired workers, who had engaged in an illegal strike since October, wanted to be in-sourced by the City, complaining of the conditions, among other things, they had to work under at the vehicle operating companies, which manage the MyCiTi buses on behalf of the City.
Earlier during the council meeting, Mayor Dan Plato, replying to a question from EFF councillor Andrew Arnolds why the drivers and support staff could not be hired directly by the City, as was the case in Johannesburg, he indicated that this wasn't contractually possible.
The City's position has been that the MyCiTi agreement with the VOCs was negotiated to empower the taxi industry, many of whose staff members were retrained as bus drivers, and that this contract could not be broken.
Plato said he had spoken to the SA Human Rights Commission and the Department of Labour, and had also met the drivers and gave them some labour and human resources advice.