Parking attendants march for their jobs
“I HAVE three children and I am a single mother. If I don’t have a job, who will provide food for my family? I am worried and scared.”
These were the words of Magdalen Mabusela, a Limpopo mother who was been working as a parking attendant in Braamfontein since 2012.
Mabusela was one of about 400 parking attendants who marched peacefully to Joburg mayor Herman Mashaba’s offices in Braamfontein yesterday after the contract between Ace Parking Services and the city ended last month.
Clad in green, singing Struggle songs and marching through the Joburg CBD with placards, the group were adamant that their grievances be heard.
“We’re not here about Ace Parking, we don’t care about Ace Parking. We care about the women, men and children who are starving because they’re being stopped from making an honest living and refusing to turn to a life of crime,” said Mametlwe Sebei, a representative from the Workers and Socialist Party.
Listing the group’s grievances, Sebei said they were calling for insourcing, minimum wages not based on commissions, and some training to stop petty criminals so that they could protect vehicles and make the service valuable for the city.
“Imagine how it would help the police in the city if they (the attendants) knew how to deal with criminals and be first responders,” he said.
Mabusela said they wanted job security.
“My family’s livelihood is at stake, and I need to protect and look after them,” she said.
Both Mabusela and a colleague, Khensani Gaveni, said they had not been told that their contracts had ended.
“We came to work last Tuesday and the Joburg metro police took our terminals (equipment) and chased us away; only then did we find out that something was wrong,” Gaveni said.
Gaveni, who is pregnant with her third child, added that if people didn’t pay for their parking space, it got taken off what they earned.
“If I earn R2 000, but if half the people didn’t pay me, it gets cut by 50%. We don’t want that kind of system; we want to earn a proper salary,” she said.
City officials met with four representatives from the group late yesterday afternoon to discuss a way forward.