The Communications Workers’ Union (CWU) and Solidarity on Wednesday signed a co-operation and coalition agreement to form a Coalition of Telkom Unions (CTU), it was announced on Thursday.
The trade unions said the agreement would enable parties to act jointly to be sufficiently representative of the workers employed by Telkom and to achieve joint majority representation of the workforce estimated at 25 000.
Through the CTU, formed during the course of wage negotiations at the group, the unions are aiming for an extension of the moratorium on layoffs. The moratorium was put in place last March when Telkom’s human resources team was headed by Oupa Magashula, who has since left the company.
In a recent interview with I-Net Bridge, Telkom CEO Papi Molotsane declined to say whether the group was in favour of extending the moratorium especially given that the workforce had fallen by 3 500 to 25 500 employees.
CWU and Solidarity are in favour of the extension of the moratorium beyond the expiry date of March 31.
The unions said the CTU would also enable them to bargain jointly and collectively with the phone group on behalf of employees, jointly exercise organisational rights as well as enter into a joint recognition agreement with Telkom.
“This coalition will have bi-monthly meetings and the chairpersonship will be shared between parties on a rotation basis. The parties shall strive to create common policies and strategies as far a practically possible,” the unions said.
“The coalition parties shall proportionally divide the allocated number of shopstewards per workplace on pro rata bases — including full time shopstewards.” – I-Net Bridge