A fortnight ago, London and other cities in the United Kingdom (UK) were the stages for truly disturbing riots. I believe that the perpetrators of those riots, and the looting and violence which characterised them, were ultimately people who had failed to take advantage of numerous opportunities in an environment saturated with them.

Sadly, we have seen our own version of violent riots in the past week. We all watched with dismay as some members of SAMWU trashed our streets, set fire to public spaces, looted and vandalised property during that union's strike action.

It saddens me to see the right to strike being cheapened in such a degrading fashion. It makes a mockery of the struggle for workers' rights in South Africa.

I remember those days well. In the 1980s, the Apartheid government finally allowed mass labour organisation after decades of undermining the basic right of most workers to organise. When we formed our unions, we were faced with a very different set of circumstances.

Sick leave was largely unheard of. There was no such thing as maternity leave. Health cover was minimal. Working conditions were often dire. Working hours were long and breaks few and far between. Wages were low. Job security was something that depended on the whims of owners' moods. And substantive conditions of employment were limited.

Apart from the political turbulence, they were days of bitter economic struggle. We organised to change that. Some of us, myself included, took on ever-increasing union duties. We sacrificed our family lives and put the interests of all workers before our personal considerations.

We organised on the shop floors. We got membership figures up. We had meetings in each other's homes. We joined with our fellow workers in other countries, seeking advice. We guarded each other against the intrusions of the security branch and the interference of owners. We pooled money for legal defences. We rallied in the factories. And we took to the streets.

It took many difficult years. But in the face of hardship, intimidation and fear, we were at last vindicated. By the late 1980s, we accelerated labour rights by decades in a matter of a couple of years.

By 1994, we celebrated our ultimate victory, knowing that we had established the rights of the ordinary worker as a person to be valued and respected in our democracy. Because of our victories, we established the principle of human dignity in the workplace.

I am proud of what we accomplished for those who are ultimately fortunate enough to have jobs in South Africa. But our pride and our struggle are betrayed by those who devalue the principle of a strike and use it as an invitation to lawlessness and to spread fear.

On Tuesday, I went on a tour of Adderley Street. I spoke to vendors, many of whom had been left destitute and traumatised. In all cases, the stories were almost identical: The vendors set up their stalls to sell their goods as they do every day. For many of them, their trading day starts at 5:00am to get the early morning pedestrian traffic as people come into work.

By midday, there were sounds from both sides of the street of approaching strikers. Then, the main body of the strike hit them. Some of the strikers tore apart the stalls with their bare hands in seconds. Other strikers helped themselves to the goods lying scattered on the streets. Then, as suddenly as they arrived, they were gone.

In their wake, they left fires, devastation and ordinary people who had to go home to their families and somehow explain that they had lost everything. We didn't fight for public disorder.

We will look to reclaiming damages from SAMWU and laying criminal charges against those members where evidence exists that proves criminal behaviour. It cannot be that every strike season we must brace ourselves for violence and destruction.

Strikes used to be powerful symbols. Today, people are numb to them, expecting the worst and feeling sadly proved right.

The fact remains that municipal workers have decent jobs. They earn more than other unionised workers. They get above-inflation increases every year. Where they express grievances, they are heard.

All of us build this city together and we respect our workers and the vital role that they play at the coalface. I know what it is to feel disenfranchised and exploited. I know the power and vindication of industrial action. But I also know that a strike is something of principle that allows workers to express themselves in the confines of the law.

We must not forget the battles we fought and why we fought them. Nor should we cheapen that memory with actions that disrespect the rights of others. Tomorrow, I will be remembering our broader struggle when we commemorate the City's UDF Memorial and the great sacrifice so many people made so that we could live in freedom today.

We formed a broad-front back then to fight injustice. We had a common enemy and we knew that the stakes were high, not just for ourselves but for our children and their children.

We were fighting for the future.

There was no secret to our fight. It required determination, perseverance and conviction. But we also knew that ultimately, to achieve dignity, we would always have to be dignified ourselves.

This article by Patricia de Lille first appeared in Cape Town This Week, the mayor's weekly newsletter.

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