THE Communication Workers Union (CWU) is up in arms against South Africa’s top cellular mobile networks, Vodacom and MTN for allegedly muting plans to retrench and dismissal of workers, an official told CAJ News on Wednesday.
Spokesman for the Communications Workers Union, Matankana Mothapo, accused the two mobile giants of using soft terminology such as “Mutual Separation” and “Outsourcing” in pursuit of an agenda to retrench telecom workers.
Among others, Mothapo lashed out at MTN for its alleged heavy-handedness towards employees embarking on an “unprotected strike” while the South Africa Post Office (SAPO) has come under siege for abusing workers’ funds.
“As CWU, we are not flattered by the terms that Vodacom uses to confuse workers such as “Mutual Separation” and “Outsourcing” in pursuit of an agenda to retrench workers,” Mothapo told CAJ News. “In simple terms the words “Mutual Separation” and “Outsourcing” simply means retrenching in our understanding and by doing this, Vodacom has, in our view, decided to go against the call by the President of the ANC (Jacob Zuma) and the country to create decent jobs.”
“It is a clear bloodsucking on the part of Vodacom capitalist management to convert some workers into labour brokers,” said Mothapo.
He accused Vodacom of being “arrogant”, “disrespectful” and “brutal”, insisting that the mobile operator ignored first order calls to totally ban labour brokers.
He said CWU would continue to sing a song in the eye of the Minister of Labour, Mildred Oliphant to be sensitive to the call by the masses of South Africa to ban labour brokers and to discard the regulation-of-labour-brokers mentality.
“We are also surprised by Vodacom in telling workers to reapply for their positions to be absorbed by this ruthless system of labour brokers,” said Mothapo.
He also condemned MTN’s suspension of workers without pay. “CWU denies that its members are on an unprotected strike. The action that has been taken by our members is a proper defence to withhold their labour until the employer complies with its contractual obligations.”
“This is a contractual defence. Employees rendered their service; the employer must pay per service rendered. Therefore, this is not a strike,” he said.
Mothapo also touched on the arising conflict at the Total Facilities Management Company (TFMC) over an unprotracted negotiations process which started in November 2010 with the Communication Workers Union and TFMC.
“This deadlock was reached on 06 April 2011 at CCMA Pretoria offices where a certificate of non-resolution of the dispute was issued to both CWU and TFMC.
“The efforts by the CCMA came after the parties have failed to resolve the dispute on their own on 15 February 2011 in terms of the internal dispute resolution mechanism,” Mothapo said. “CWU has since engaged in a process to mobilise its members with a view to engage in an industrial action whose magnitude would be ghastly to contemplate.”
Mothapo said that the CWU demands an increase of 8% increment against the company’s 7% increment.
by Tintswalo Baloyi
