Strike looming at Telkom over wages

South Africa’s Communications Workers Union (CWU) have indicated that a strike at fixed line operator, Telkom, could be imminent.

The union says that salary issues for Telkom workers need to be resolved to avert the labour action that has the potential to impact badly on the upcoming FIFA Confederations Cup soccer tournament.

Says Richard Poulton, leader of the CWU negotiating team: “We are worried that a strike by Telkom workers will negatively impact on the Confederations Cup, if an amicable solution is not reached soon. Telkom must show leadership on this matter and give workers a salary increase that is considerate of not only Consumer Price Index (CPI), but the overall cost of living including the increases in the price of houses, medical aid, transport, rates taxes and electricity,”

“CWU members working in TELKOM, SABC and Sentech will be involved in the
provision of ICT services such as broadcasting to the Confederations Cup. As matters stand disputes in these companies set to resolved in the streets and not in the boardrooms.”

At a meeting between CWU and other trade unions with Telkom in May of this year, the unions reduced their demand for an increase on basic salary from 16% to 13%, among other issues. Telkom offered an increase of between 5 and 7,5 %, far below the current CPI of 8, 5%.

“The reality is that Telkom did not improve on its offer from the very first meeting. They stood steadfast at their budgeted amount of 7, 5% increase on their current wage bill. Income differentials were created by the company’s unilateral implementation of an exercise of compression of grades in 2000. This created an unacceptable situation whereby a technician doing the same job as his colleague is earning R 7980.00 less per month. A supervisor earns R 12220.00 per month less than his colleague,”

What compounds this situation is that it is discriminatory, because more than 95% of all top earners in the bargaining unit are white and almost 99% of the lowest earners are black,” Poulton said.

— Mthulisi Sibanda