Unions march on Telkom

By Damaria Senne for Telkom
Johannesburg, 27 Mar 2006

Telkom has revised its offer to unions, but 5 000 Telkom workers are going ahead with a protest march against the fixed-line operator`s profit-sharing scheme in Pretoria today.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) and Solidarity, united as the Coalition of Telkom Unions, said this morning their members would go ahead with the march to Telkom`s head office today. They are protesting the way Telkom manages its gain-sharing scheme as well as other employee compensation plans.

The march began at 11am outside the Union Buildings and ended at Telkom`s head office, where union members were scheduled to present a memorandum of demands to Telkom management.

The action was decided last week, after four months of negotiations between Telkom and the two striking unions, as well as the South African Communications Union (SACU), failed to yield an agreement.

Unions divided

Telkom says it presented a revised offer to all three unions on 24 March. According to Charlotte Mokoena, Telkom`s group executive for human resources, gain sharing for the lowest paid employee would increase by over 400% in terms of the revised offer.

Jannie Volschenk, SACU deputy general secretary, says the union accepted the revised offer on behalf of its members. The offer was an improvement on the previous one, which the union had a mandate from members to accept, he says.

Volschenk notes that 18 000 workers out of the 23 000 for which all three unions are bargaining would receive an increase of R6 000 under the new terms. Of the 18 000 workers, 6 100 are SACU members, he says.

Volschenk says SACU will also ensure implementation of the new terms for 5 500 non-union Telkom workers whose job descriptions fall under the negotiated categories.

Dirk Hermann, Solidarity deputy general secretary, says the union would present Telkom`s revised offer to its members today at the march. He says Telkom`s offer was presented late on Friday afternoon after the protest march was already planned. It had therefore been impossible to reach 15 000 workers in a weekend to ask for a mandate to suspend the action, he adds.

In contrast with the other unions, Mfanafuthi Sithebe, head of communications for CWU, says Telkom has not presented it with a revised offer. He says CWU`s national executive committee will wait for feedback from the negotiators before deciding on a course of action following the strike.