Telkom workers have been on strike for about five weeks, demanding an 11 percent salary increase, six months maternity leave, gain-sharing, bridging the “apartheid wage gap”, and a three-year moratorium on retrenchments and outsourcing.

The CWU argued that Telkom was still implementing apartheid era wage gaps, with evident disparities between African and white males in particular.

The CWU’s Mphikeleli Nkuthu said the union was begging the ANC to remove Telkom chief executive, Sipho Maseko. He said it was clear that Telkom was not responsive to their demands but wanted the status quo to remain.

He also said if the situation did not change the union would withdraw their labour as provided for by the Labour Relations Act.

“We will only return to work when the company responds to our demand,” Nkuthu said outside Luthuli House.

ANC spokesperson, Zizi Kodwa, was not immediately available for comment.

However, according to Telkom, the current CWU strike was as a result of substantive wage negotiations that culminated in the South African Communications Union (Sacu) and Solidarity signing a new collaborative partnership agreement. The CWU, despite having initially indicated that they would sign the agreement, were still refusing to do so. The CWU went on strike on August 1, demanding, among others, an 11 percent across-the-board increase.

In the collaborative partnership agreement signed in June this year with Sacu and Solidarity, Telkom agreed to a two year moratorium on any further retrenchments. So there were no retrenchments currently underway or planned.

On August 15, the CWU blockaded access to a number of Telkom facilities around the country, including the main campus in Centurion in Gauteng. Telkom went to court and secured an urgent and interim interdict to stop the union from blocking access to the facilities. The union was also interdicted from damaging Telkom property and intimidating employees, contractors, and customers. The interdict also required protesters to remain 50 metres from the entrance of any Telkom facility.

On Friday, Telkom went to the Labour Court to secure a contempt of court judgment against 13 CWU members, along with the union’s president, for failing to comply with the original interdict. These workers were identified to have been protesting outside various Telkom stores, while intimidating employees and shoppers in the affected malls.

These CWU members had to, on the return date in November 2016, appear in court to show cause why the court should not hold them to be in contempt for contravening the interdict secured by Telkom on August 15. The judge also awarded costs against the CWU.

On Wednesday this week, the Labour Court handed down a judgment against the CWU describing the union as “confrontational” and “obstructionist”, and noted that the CWU had withheld key facts from its founding affidavit. The judgment related to an urgent application brought to the Labour Court on August 1. The CWU sought to interdict Telkom from completing the section 189 (retrenchment) phase of the company’s restructuring of its corporate office.

The judgment found against the CWU and was clear that the union had not consulted in good faith noting “… there is not one real example in any of the consultations conducted of the CWU making a proper proposal on any of the section 189(2) consultation topics”.

Between March 8 and July 19, Telkom attempted to consult with the CWU on 15 different occasions. Telkom even sought to supplement consultations outside of the formal facilitated process to ensure that all issues were addressed.

Despite these many attempts, the judgment noted that the union maintained an “intransigent” position, insisting that all processes be halted and wages be negotiated. The court found no unfairness in the circumstances surrounding Telkom’s restructuring process and instead found that the conduct of CWU itself had undermined consultation efforts.

The judgment stated: “The overall objective of fair consultation has been achieved, despite the CWU’s best efforts to scupper this. In the end, it is the conduct of CWU itself that stands in the way of it claiming procedural unfairness.”

While the judge indicated a temptation to award costs, based on the conduct described in the judgment, the decision was not to award costs in an effort to maintain the relationship between Telkom and the CWU. In total, 57 employees were finally retrenched from the corporate office, Telkom said.

ANA