Skyforce employees discuss what to do next after they protested at the civic centre in Cape Town today. The City contracted Skyforce to clean several stations across the City, but the owners of the company appear to have absconded without paying their employees’ wages. Photo by Masixole Feni.
11 May 2015
A few dozen Skyforce General Services employees picketed outside the Cape Town civic centre today, demanding to speak to Mayor Patricia de Lille about their salaries that have not been paid in full for months.
Skyforce was contracted by the City to clean several stations across Cape Town. The owners appear to have absconded, and the employment status of the company’s workers is now unclear.
City of Cape Town officials and police were standing outside the Civic Centre blocking the protesters from entering the building and demanding that they should leave since the protest had not received permission.
The workers shouted saying that they wanted to see the mayor and they would not leave before they see her. They were disappointed when they were informed that the mayor was in Port Elizabeth.
Wilfred Solomons-Johannes from the mayor’s office privately addressed the workers’ supervisor Tshabalala Jaca and other two workers about the City’s position in the matter.
He then addressed the protesters, saying, “We as the City are not responsible for your payments. We are paying the service provider. Then the service provider employs its own workers and pays them.”
When Skyforce employee Zukisani Khota asked Johannes to take the contract away from the company, Solomons-Johannes said that they cannot just sideline the contractor because there were tender processes that were followed. An investigation will have to be done. Solomons-Johannes also said that in some cases a company at fault is given a second chance.
Solomons-Johannes told the workers that this City had paid Skyforce all money owed to them. He then spoke on the phone with Phumza Sityata, Regional Operations Manager for the City of Cape Town, who said that she will organize a meeting with the Skyforce workers.
Solomons-Johannes indicated that the City has also been trying to get hold of Lungephi and Lulama Tom who are the owners of the company for two weeks now but has not been able to reach them.
Solomons-Johannes told the protesters that for now they should go back to work while they make sure that the company pays back their money in full.
Jaca suggested to his colleagues that they report to work but not actually do any further work until they get paid.
One worker told GroundUp that she doesn’t understand why a BEE company would defraud another black person knowing the struggle other black people go through everyday.
Pierrinne Leukes told, spokesperson for the mayor, told GroundUp, “We have taken the decision to intervene by withholding payments to Skyforce until such time as the contractor honours its obligation to the workers. We will be in contact with the elected representatives from the workers in order to ensure that they have received payment.”