The SAMWU strikes spread from Cape Town to Durban to Johannesburg, trashing the cities and, of course, their cause.

Any discussion, surrounding municipal workers’ salaries, is mooted following their hooliganism. Do they honestly believe that smashing car windows and robbing street vendors (who earn less than SAMWU members) is going to win them the sympathy from the general public?

Besides, earning around five grand is a lot for sweeping the pavement. There are countless graduates who can’t find a job for five grand. Worse, there are millions of South Africans who earn less than half of that, and who don’t have a voice because they can’t even afford union membership fees. (Unions, of course, only “care” about their paying members.)