Striking MyCiTi workers have been released from the Cape Town civic centre, after the building was placed on lockdown when protests began on the ground floor.
The City of Cape Town's civic centre was locked down on Wednesday morning after a group of MyCiTi protesters entered the ground floor of the building.
MyCiTi employees have been striking for weeks over labour demands since October 15.
Five leaders were reportedly arrested inside the building.
Multiple stun grenades were let off in the area outside the entrance during a tense stand-off with police around 11:00, as more strikers came to join their colleagues locked in the building.
Strikers outside the civic centre threw stones at police in retaliation.
At around 12:10, the arrested leaders were released, with the wildcat protest continuing outside the building under calmer circumstances.
Following their release, the city said the situation was a lot calmer, with the civic centre only on partial lockdown.
"The protesters were former employees of the vehicle operating companies, who embarked on an illegal strike in October, and were subsequently dismissed by their employer. They are not city employees," spokesperson Jyothi Naidoo said.
Earlier on Wednesday, tweets and video on social media showed a group of protesters on the ground floor of the civic centre, surrounded by police.
One of the protest leaders, Johannes Gordon, claimed that they entered the building because the city's metro police said they would be assisted in speaking with new mayor Dan Plato.
He told News24 metro police and South African Police Service members surrounded them on the ground floor. All exits were blocked.
One of the companies that employs MyCiTi staff, Kidrogen, said it has had to sack 80 of the workers to mitigate the impact of the strike, EWN reported on Wednesday.
The 80 employees had not reported to work for five consecutive days during the unprotected strike, going against the company's disciplinary code of conduct.
*This story has been updated.
#MyCiti leadership has been released.@TeamNews24 pic.twitter.com/dAKeDKhKZN
— Christina Pitt (@ChristinaPitt94) November 21, 2018
Show down between police and what appear to be #MyCiti workers at the Civic Centre. (@ChristinaPitt94) pic.twitter.com/fE1qGYxmMS
— Team News24 (@TeamNews24) November 21, 2018
#MyCiti workers are being held inside the Civic Centre. Leadership outside the building is calling for discipline. (@ChristinaPitt94) pic.twitter.com/KS7vfAdhmn
— Team News24 (@TeamNews24) November 21, 2018
Captain Prins refuses to negotiate with #MyCiti leadership as he believes that they have not controlled the crowd.@TeamNews24 pic.twitter.com/pl03cIhkcx
— Christina Pitt (@ChristinaPitt94) November 21, 2018
Striking workers (mainly MyCiti bus staff) have occupied the Civic Centre and prompted a lockdown of the building #myciti #capetown #news24 pic.twitter.com/yzuTlIifqd
— Kadri (@kadri_nassiep) November 21, 2018
I made it in and it turns out the MyCiti bus strikers are inside the building in front of this iconic photo ?? pic.twitter.com/Jc8DG3IjkN
— MANAGEMENT (@Zimasile_) November 21, 2018
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