Johannesburg - Before “London Bridge is down” was breaking news, I heard a protesting Putco bus driver break in the news.
He was split in two, trapped in a catch-22 of remorse for commuters and disdain for his employer.
Survival mode is a beast, there will always be rage when you fiddle with a wildcat’s feast.
It’s been two long years and bonuses have been scarce, and a 6% salary increase seems a pipe dream; and so, buses must halt, tyres must burn, police must fire – how thick are the skins of bus drivers? Rubber bullets will tell.
But this driver I heard in the news was tugging and pushing; tugging at his own heartstrings with compassion for many commuters who buy monthly tags, who live hand-to-mouth, who now have to borrow money for alternative transport or miss work and have less to eat.
Survival mode is an angry beast when you have more than your own mouth to feed.
He was tugging and pushing; pushing the envelope, his employer had not been meeting him halfway, he had to choose which family eats that day, his or the commuters’.
We speak much about business being affected by the actions of workers, and less about the workers being affected by the lack of action from the business, a lack of bonuses and salary increases – he deserves his supper.
Before the late monarch’s private secretary called the prime minister on a secure line and uttered the code phrase, “London Bridge is down,” a thousand bus drivers reminded me that, for generations, we have been burning inside. Igniting into song and flames in protest is an ancient tradition and modern practicality for us, we have lava in our veins.
We can only be pushed and short-changed to the edge of darkness for so long that when we take that blind leap of faith into the abyss, we will erupt and spill into the streets, then take accountability for the flames.
You need to understand that it takes a very desperate man to defecate where he eats. He would stumble upon a meandering footpath and run straight, chanting hymns of cinder and spurring others on to trigger a trance through a fire dance.
While the news of the death of the Queen reached the 15 Commonwealth countries where the British sovereign is head of state, and a footman in mourning dress emerged from Buckingham Palace to post a black-edged death notice near the gates, Putco was fighting fire with fire. It made good on its threat to fire 150 of its workers; the measly peanuts they received in wages dropped to zero, throwing fairness out the window for the drivers as they did for the commuters who were left stranded.
No one comes out clean from a mudslinging contest, Putco signed an agreement for a 6% increase, resisted implementing it and applied for a partial exemption, offering a 3% increase instead, frustrating the worker and short-changing them to the edge of darkness.