Cosatu backs CWU 24 - 04 - 06

 

COSATU backs CWU against Telkom

The Congress of South African Trade Unions fully supports the Communications Workers Union in its dispute with Telkom SA. We deplore the employer's decision to lock out all CWU members pending the signing of an agreement. We agree with CWU that this is nothing but "an attempt by Telkom to intimidate CWU members in order to accept what they have offered to their sweetheart unions".

COSATU is particularly outraged that Telkom are continuing to issue staff with forms for resigning from the union. As part of a previous settlement, which was made an order of court, Telkom agreed to refrain from doing this. It has however come to the attention of CWU's lawyers that Telkom has ignored the court order and continues to process these forms and encourage staff to resign from the union. We agree totally with the lawyers that Telkom is in contempt of court and that any resignations that took place in the context of the lock-out by Telkom are invalid. We demand that Telkom stop issuing these forms immediately!

Telkom in many ways is a microcosm of South Africa, with a salary structure that reinforces the massive inequalities that our country suffers from. 2300 top managers were paid over R1,3 billion between 1 April 2005 and 30 September 2005, while, in the same period 23500 workers received R1,8 billion. In 2005 the previous CEO, Sizwe Nxasana, received a total of R 6 971 568 while the lowest paid worker got R46 972, a ratio of 148:1!

There can be no justification for such vast differentials and CWU is 100% right to demand wage increases for the lowest paid in order to start narrowing the apartheid wage gap that Telkom has done nothing to eradicate. COSATU will support whatever action CWU decides to take in protest against the unfair and unequal treatment of workers.