PRETORIA - South African fast-food outlet Steers says a wrong judgement call was made after it’s workers were filmed doing gardening work.
In an act that has been widely criticised, the employees from the Menlo Park branch in Pretoria were filmed performing gardening tasks.
In a statement shared on its official page on X, Steers South Africa said a preliminary investigation had established that the workers were asked by their manager to remove excessive weed growth due to a delay in landlord maintenance.
“While keeping a clean exterior is important, this work should not be carried out by team members. This is not standard practice at Steers and is unacceptable. It’s clear that these individuals made the wrong call.”
In the now viral video, when the employees are asked why they were doing gardening work, one responds, “only God know”.
The man who filmed the video and shared it online is later seen speaking to the manager before confiscating gardening tools.
“This is an abuse of workers. Why do you do this with Black people? This is nonsense. These are not gardeners,” the man is heard shouting.