Cape Town’s Taxi Violence - One Business Reminds Us What Looking After Your Employees Looks Like at Platō Coffee

Over the weekend I wanted to publish a short essay about something I saw on social media that resonated with me. As taxi-related shootings and transport disruptions left commuters stranded across Cape Town, a Platō Coffee employee’s social media post drew attention to an employer who arranged overnight accommodation and dinner for staff who could not safely get home.

Cape Town’s taxi violence is becoming an increasingly difficult reality for people who depend on minibus taxis to get to work, school and back home. While the disputes between the Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (CATA) and the Cape Organisation for the Democratic Taxi Association (CODETA) have currently ended, these occurrences do raise questions about operating rights, contested routes and the regulation of the industry, ordinary commuters are left navigating the consequences. There are people missing work, students worrying about getting home after examinations, businesses dealing with operational disruptions and employees who suddenly find themselves unable to make the journey home safely. And while much of the public conversation understandably focuses on the shootings, fatalities and efforts to restore order, there are also smaller, important stories emerging about how people are responding to the crisis.

One such story comes from Aphiwe Gwilikana, who shared a TikTok post showing her employer’s response when she and her colleagues could not get home because of the taxi-related violence. The post, which tagged @Platō Coffee, carried the caption: “POV: your boss booked a BnB for you and your colleagues because you couldn’t go home.” But the gesture did not end with arranging somewhere for the team to spend the night. The employer also organised dinner, with footage showing him arriving with KFC meals for the employees. It was a practical intervention that addressed two immediate needs: somewhere to sleep and something to eat. Aphiwe’s accompanying message, asking people to give the man his flowers, struck a chord with social media users, many of whom responded by expressing their appreciation and promising to support the business.

This entire post is worth observing and acknowledging as it speaks about the relationship between business operations and employee welfare. Businesses do not operate independently of the communities, infrastructure and transport systems around them so when public transport becomes unreliable or unsafe, the consequences eventually find their way into the workplace. An employee who cannot get home is not simply experiencing a personal inconvenience, they experience more as the situation can become an operational, financial and human-resource concern for the employer.

What happens when the last shift ends but the journey home is no longer safe? What happens when staff members cannot access the transport they rely on, particularly when alternative arrangements are expensive or unavailable? These are questions worth considering as part of business continuity planning, especially for businesses whose employees work late shifts or travel across different parts of the city.

What makes this particular moment interesting is that the public response was not driven by a marketing campaign, an influencer partnership or a carefully packaged corporate social responsibility announcement. It came from an employee sharing an experience of being looked after when circumstances became difficult. That is a different kind of brand visibility. People saw an employer making arrangements for his staff and began connecting that action to the business itself. There is commercial value in that kind of goodwill, but it is important not to lose sight of where it began… with people needing help. Employee welfare should not become a marketing gimmick, nor should responsible treatment of staff be considered an extraordinary act that businesses only need to demonstrate when the cameras are rolling. If a company speaks about its people being its greatest asset, moments like these offer an opportunity to examine what those words actually mean in practice.

We can give this business owner his flowers while also asking bigger questions about the working conditions and responsibilities that shape South Africa’s business environment. No employer should have to compensate indefinitely for a public transport system disrupted by violence, and employees should not have to rely on exceptional acts of individual generosity to get home safely. The responsibility for resolving the taxi industry’s disputes, protecting commuters and ensuring that transport services operate within the law rests with the relevant industry bodies and public authorities, and this speaks directly to municipal authorities, spatial planning and governance.

Within the circumstances they can influence, employers also have choices about how they treat the people who work for them. Aphiwe Gwilikana’s post gives us a glimpse of one such choice. In a week when Cape Town has been reminded of how quickly an ordinary journey home can become uncertain, this is a business decision worth acknowledging. This is not a review, but an acknowledgement that sometimes, leadership is not demonstrated in a boardroom presentation or a corporate statement, sometimes it looks like booking a place for your employees to sleep, making sure they have dinner, and ensuring that they are not left to figure everything out on their own.

Disclaimer: I will NOT be entertaining any comments about “why was it fried chicken instead of x-y-z”. This essay is about the thought and consideration given and accepted by a business for its staff. That is the conversation we are highlighting on TINAR… enye, nenye, andizi.