Solidarity and the Communication Workers Union’s (CWU) leadership have declared their national stayaway and march on Monday to deliver a memorandum of grievances to Telkom a success.
An estimated 2 000 protesters marched to Telkom’s head office in Pretoria. About 13 000 Telkom employees stayed away from work.
”Today’s biggest success, however, is the stayaway. The great majority of our members did not report for duty. This in itself must be a clear indication to Telkom that its employees are not happy,” said Solidarity spokesperson Jaco Kleynhans.
The unions said the stayaway would continue on Tuesday, with workers returning to their posts possibly by Wednesday.
The march, under a heavy police presence, was supported by the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the SA Communist Party, and the African National Congress Youth League.
Receiving the memorandum, Telkom’s deputy CEO Charlotte Mokoena said she would hand it to company management, which would respond based on its contents.
In the memorandum, Solidarity and CWU demand R50 000 a year per worker from the company’s profits. They also call for an 8,5% salary increase for general workers and a 7,5% increase for supervisory and specialist workers.
They allege that the spread of salaries in Telkom is skewed in favour of management.
The unions claim R1,3-billion was spent on 2 300 managers between April and September last year, while R1,8-billion was spent on the salaries of 23 500 workers over the same period.
Marchers carried placards reading: ”Equal work; Equal pay”, ”Telkom workers unite” and ”Down with sweetheart unions”.
Solidarity and the CWU rejected an offer by Telkom on Friday.
A third union representing Telkom workers — the SA Communications Union –accepted the offer.
Solidarity said Telkom’s decision on Monday to withdraw the offer proved the company was not serious in its attempts to reach a settlement. — Sapa