Solidarity has declared an internal dispute with Telkom regarding the handling of wage negotiations, the union said on Tuesday.
”Wage negotiations have already been postponed several times and the first official round of negotiations, scheduled for yesterday [Monday] and today [Tuesday], was once again postponed late on Friday afternoon,” the trade union said in a statement.
The union said it was ready to conduct wage negotiations with Telkom in January.
In the interim, employees’ interests were not looked after, as negotiations were put off ”time and time again”, Solidarity said.
”Solidarity is now demanding that the recognition agreement with trade unions be respected,” spokesperson Jaco Kleynhans said.
”The three-year wage agreement in Telkom must be implemented by April 1,” he added.
Solidarity said outsourcing had also become a problem at Telkom.
The union said the issue of outsourcing was postponed after Telkom management met certain trade unions last week and concluded an agreement.
”In terms of the agreement, there will be no retrenchments and no redundancy in Telkom,” the union said.
Although Solidarity had received the agreement, the trade union had not yet signed it and planned to meet management next week to discuss the agreement.
”Reportedly it was decided to put the process on hold due to concern about Telkom’s service delivery for the Soccer World Cup in 2010,” Solidarity said.
The union was demanding to be given full details about the Telkom agreement.
”Among other things, Solidarity is demanding that Telkom be upfront with its employees regarding the duration of the agreement, whether or not the agreement would possibly include voluntary severance packages and early retirement packages, and whether the agreement will only be valid for employees of Telkom SA.”
Kleynhans said in the past year a storm had erupted at Telkom over the possibility of outsourcing.
”This has led to tremendous uncertainty for most Telkom employees.
”Now employees are being placated with a further agreement that the restructuring plans have been postponed for the time being,” Kleynhans added.
Telkom could not comment immediately. — Sapa