Volume 10, No.1 - February 2001

Never Again

Happy Xmas - You're fired!

By Sizwe Matshikiza, CWU spokesperson

On 11 December, just days before the holiday closedown, Telkom management sent out their Xmas message - retrenchment notices! They informed 700 workers they would lose their jobs on 31 December 2000.

At a time when everyone else would be celebrating the eve of a new year, they decided to celebrate this season of good will by throwing us into joblessness and despair.

This was not some kind of sick Christmas joke from evil minds but part of Telkom top management's plans. The Communications Workers' Union (CWU) and COSATU held a sit-in at Telkom's headquarters in Pretoria to protest against these callous Xmas retrenchments.

On 23 December, the CWU and COSATU met the ministers of Public Enterprises and Communication, to get government to intervene against the callous Xmas retrenchments. The ministers instructed Telkom to halt these inhuman jobs pogroms.

We expected Telkom to respect these instructions. But, true to our long-held view that Telkom management has long ceased to honour and uphold decisions of the custodians of this vital economic infrastructure, Telkom and its strategic equity partners from America and Malaysia, boldly defied our government ministers.

On 18 January 2001, following a meeting in Pretoria, where Telkom announced yet another round of merciless job destruction, our union declared a dispute. Telkom were not even prepared to negotiate their horrific future of joblessness and poverty, in flagrant violation of an agreement reached on 7 August 2000 (see below), which directed Telkom to restructure in line with the NFA.

This latest hare-brained scheme has further increased Telkom workers' anger and militancy, visibly displayed by dozens of union members who demonstrated outside the meeting.

To protest at this brazen defiance of legitimate instructions from a democratic government, the union has no option but to resort to a programme of action in defence of our jobs and in support of the legitimate and progressive decision of our government. We will also consider legal advice on how to deal with a violation of a lawful agreement.

We shall embark on protected strike action in terms of Section 7 of the Labour Relations Act, including marches against the American and Malaysian embassies, some of whose citizens are immoral shareholders in Telkom, and demonstrations against Telkom itself.

Western Cape, Kwa Zulu Natal, Northern Cape, Free State and Eastern Cape will march individually on 12-16 February 2001. Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Northern Province and North West will march collectively on 19-23 February 2001.

This action will continue until the insensitive and arrogant Board of Directors of Telkom has been restructured. We demand the resignation of the Chief Executive Officer of Telkom, Mr Sizwe Nxasana, and the Chairperson of the Board, Mr Dingang Moseneka.

Our union will speed up consultation with all interested parties, especially the ANC. We are encouraged by this political party's "Lekgotla" resolution of 14 January 2001 to call for the review of privatisation of state assets, which are currently being privatised only for the purpose of serving the dubious interest of a few bureaucrats who hold high positions in these parastatals.

Selling shares; selling jobs

The underlying reason behind Telkom's December retrenchment announcement is the Initial Public Offering (IPO) - Telkom's drive to sell shares of this parastatal, through the Stock Exchange, to capitalists - which they expect to complete before the end of April 2001.

In a short-sighted attempt to raise share prices before the IPO, Telkom has already implemented job cuts, asset stripping and downgrading services for the poor. They wrongly and arrogantly believe that retrenching workers will make Telkom more profitable and able to provide better services to our communities. This mistaken and evil belief has destroyed more than 15 000 of our jobs within 12 months alone. In December their aim was to butcher even more jobs before the end of 2000.

Unless government, as majority shareholder, can control these tendencies, the cost to the country will far outweigh the potential earnings from the IPO. The government must insist that Telkom, instead of concentrating on these short-term commercial measures, works with the government and other stakeholders to define a strategic direction for the communications industry and Telkom.

At the 24 December meeting, it was further agreed that matters of voluntary severance packages, retrenchments, job creation and social plans must be discussed within these NFA guidelines. But in further defiance of government, Telkom gave us some more documents during the second week of December, containing more plans to destroy jobs through restructuring the marketing information technology, finance and sales sections

. Working conditions and benefits of our colleagues in the call centres are also under attack. Telkom is insisting that workers should work unpaid overtime while at the same time they re giving other workers final warnings. All this is done outside the NFA. This is what their IPO means to our jobs.