SNIPPETS

http://www.zoopy.com/video/1hco/rea-vaya?browse=2 BRT Video

The BRT commenced services and other than the normal hiccups a new service may have there is the matter of taxi owners / association intimidation.

They own the routs they say but they have never engaged with town planning or the construction of roads or with the maintenance thereof.

Once houses are built the routes to and fro any destination is established and not taxi group can lay claim to such routes.

In recent years the taxi industry has been involved in attacks on Golden Arrow, o other taxi owners and drivers and on commuters.

They threaten to hold communities, industry and government at ransom.

Commuters have been waiting for the BRT system for many years and no role-player or stakeholder can claim ignorance of the plans to implement this system. It has been 10 years or so now that commuters are waiting for the BRT and if the taxi industry is still unready, they will never be ready as long as their unreadiness would prevent the system’s implementation.

The main players of the taxi industry are street-wise and well informed with regard to legal processes. If they truly believe that their rights are impinged upon they have both the money and other resources to access court to enforce their rights…but a can of worms of such magnitude will be opened up that most do not want to go this route.

They prefer intimidation.

The situation is entirely intolerable.

I asked a driver recently why they are striking and received all the usual answers.

I then asked why the driver and guards do not strike against the owners and received a silly smile in reply and an attempt to return to the “The government did not…” argument.

‘But you should strike against the owners’ I insisted.’

‘They are supposed to register you as employees and pay you a minimum wage.’

Even as I was having this conversation I knew that the taxi industry is not a simple employer-employee relationship.

Many drivers and guards virtually rent the vehicle from the owner…The owner has a vehicle and there are a number of drivers that he allows to drive the vehicle.

The owner may want R600 a day for the taxi.

The driver and guard work as many trips as quickly as they can to raise this R600 and then drive trips for their own income.

The relationship is therefore not quite the usual employer –employee relationship.

This is also why the drivers and guards cannot strike against their ‘employers’ because they are more business associates that of employers and employee.

This is also why drivers and guards have such high stakes in the continuation of the existing system.

Owner drivers are both the owner and the driver of the taxi and often do not use guards but may use a fiend or a family member to assist on the taxi from time to time.

Some associations will employ a person to manage a terminal point and here that person will fill the taxi due to depart, collect fares and pay the drivers money over to him.

It is my opinion that the owner driver can not refuse to strike when the other owners and their stable of drivers and guards choose to do so. They already face some negative feelings from those drivers and guards who want access to the owner driver vehicles for that opportunity to generate some income.

These drivers and guards will happily take a brick or iron bar to that vehicle should the owner driver attempt to transport passengers on a ‘strike day’. As it is such an owner driver must be glad if the only thing that happens is that these drivers and guards unload his passengers and give him a warning. (I have heard these threats and warnings and have seen passengers unloaded!!!)

Sometimes the police are within the vicinity when this abuse against taxi owners and their passengers takes place.

Twenty police cars or so may converge to contain the taxis; the police will have guns and rifles but not a single policeman will move to protect passengers from being unloaded and to stop the threats against the owner driver and the passengers. I witnessed this twice in relation the Cape Town Station Deck and Darling Street and the Parade.

I have photos of this and should really find them and publish them.

In the past 12 months I had asked both Minister McKenzie and Helen’s team (who forwarded my correspondence and photos to Helen) to attend to the problems on the Station Deck in Cape Town. Nothing was done and I hope that the revamping of the station will improve conditions for commuters.