South African trade unions have been urged to move with the times and start organising e-hailing workers who still work under bad conditions in South Africa. Such criticisms emerged from a two-day conference on e-hailing workers, held at the University of the Western Cape earlier this week.

Organised by the International Alliance of App-based Transport Workers, with the Centre for Transformative Regulation of Work (Centrow), and the Western Cape E-hailing Association as host partners, the conference saw e-hailing workers from Kenya, Ghana and South Africa getting together to discuss a report on the need for decent work in the new and growing platform sector.

Labour activist and researcher at Centrow, Mario Jacobs said that the unions have not moved with the times and adapted to new forms of work. “The workplace for e-hailing drivers is the road; why can’t the unions go to where the workers are? Why can’t the unions use the very same electronic means to organise the workers?” Jacobs asked.

Pat Horn, the coordinator of Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (Wiego) and veteran labour activist, said that the unions in other African countries have embraced app-workers. “I attended a recent meeting by the Ituc [International Trade Union Confederation] and it was clear in that meeting that trade unions in the rest of Africa are far more advanced than here in respect of embracing workers in the sector. The doors are opening though for South African unions but Kenya, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal have unions that organise e-hailing workers,” Horn said.

The Western Cape organiser for the Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu), Qhama Zondani admitted that trade unions have not done enough to assist or fulfill their objective of organising the most vulnerable workers in society.

Meanwhile, Vuyani Shwane from the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (Nupsaw), said that as the first union in the country to organise e-hailing workers, they faced many hurdles. “It is difficult to organise them because of the nature of their work. They are not confined in one space; they roam around. How do you then service that roaming target with little resources that we have as trade unions?” he asked.

Omar Parker, the general secretary of the Western Cape E-hailing Association [WCEA] said they are not building a traditional union. “The nature of trade unions in itself indicates that we are not going to get trade unions to organise new forms of work that have emerged. We have seen how forums like Simunye and the Casual Workers Advice Office are doing it and now are involved in a landmark court case to get themselves registered as a union.” He added that the WCEA has agreed with the two organisations to develop joint programmes with existing unions to build common struggle and solidarity.

Working conditions in the sector

Nyambura Kogi from the Association of Women Commercial Drivers of Kenya spoke of how the industry is exploitative and insecure, particularly for women drivers who face gender-based violence. Sexual harassment by customers over the app happens frequently, and she says at all times of the day and night. A ready market to devour commercial vehicles for spares makes hijacking common and it is not a safe occupation, especially for women drivers.

Dineo Mosomane, from the E-hailing National Convention of South Africa (Enecsa) based in Gauteng, echoed Kogi’s sentiments on the safety of female drivers in the sector. “We are harassed and as soon as they see that you are a woman driver, you become a target. They make comments about your looks. The safety issue is worse with women drivers. I always advise women drivers not to take trips in the evening but because we want money it is difficult to ignore,” she said.

Secretary general of KZN E-hailing Council, Sithembiso Khanyezi said that they face violence from taxi associations, unclear government regulations and unfair vehicle impoundments by law enforcement agencies. “We face harassment from our rivals which are taxi associations and police officials who unfairly impound our cars because they say we are operating illegally because we do not have operating licences.” What these licences are and how government wants to regulate the industry is not clear, he said.

“The taxi associations use squad cars to chase us, stop us and take the money that we have and they always tell you that you are not allowed to operate in their area. But when you go to the association you will find out that they do not know anything about the squad cars even though they have their logos,” Khanyezi said.

Regulation of the sector

Muzi Simelane, a director at the transport department told the conference that the government was caught off guard. “We didn’t see it coming. When we realised it, it was already existing in our public transport space.” App-work is not yet recognised in law and an amendment to labour law, making provision for e-hailing, is pending.