Animals 'want strike to end'

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:17

Smashing eggs and crushing strawberries over a bed of feed pellets, volunteers whipped up breakfast for the hundreds of animals whose keepers have been on strike all week at the Johannesburg Zoo.

"We're managing," said zoo spokesperson Letta Madlala. "We couldn't do it without them, honestly." The zoo in Johannesburg's leafy northern suburbs normally has 178 full-time staff, but only about 44 have arrived each day since municipal workers launched a nationwide strike on Monday in a wage dispute.

Now the zoo is relying on a team of up to 20 volunteers who arrive at dawn to prepare meals, feed animals and clean enclosures — though the volunteers are not allowed in the pens with lions and other big predators.

Their meals are served inside a shelter while the big animals are in the pen. Doors to the meal only open once the volunteers are out.

Zoology student Nadia Hansa (19) has volunteered at the zoo for more than four years. Usually she works about two days a week, but since the strike started she has come every day at sun-up.

Afterward she heads to her classes at Witswatersrand University and returns in the afternoon to pick up where she left off.

These animals are very fragile and need to be fed

"A lot of the animals need to be fed every single day," she said. "Birds will die if they're not fed every day because their metabolism is so high." Volunteers and the remaining workers make sure the animals are fed and watered each day, but other tasks are neglected.

"Cleaning of enclosures, which should happen every day, only happens when it needs to," she said as she shovelled muddy water out of a trough in a pen for mountain goats. "We manage to get through most things, but things won't be as clean."

Louise Gordon, the zoo's marketing and education manager, said some volunteers were tour guides at the zoo or former employees, while others were members of the public who wanted to lend a hand.

General maintenance, such as painting, had come to a standstill, she said.

Regular workers don't wear their uniform

Many regular workers still on the job are not wearing their uniforms to blend in with the volunteers, for fear that they could become targets of intimidation.

One woman cleaning a bird enclosure said she came to the zoo only briefly to do the most urgent work, and then would leave to support the strike, which she said was needed to boost employees' salaries.

Unions and employers were meeting Thursday to bridge their differences over wages, with workers demanding a 15 percent increase after rejecting an offer of 13 percent.

"It is a national strike," she said. "We need this."

http://news.iafrica.com/sa/1834740.htm