Solidarity has asked the CCMA to intervene in the retrenchment of about 4000 temporary and contract workers at Telkom.

"Solidarity also regards Telkom's announcement that the retrenchments would be postponed to 31 December as a mere deferring of the problem and the trade union will not accept it," union spokesperson Jaco Kleynhans said in a statement on Friday.

Employees would originally have been retrenched next Friday. Simply postponing them was "not fair" and that the process should be restarted.

"The postponing of the Telkom retrenchments emanates from a unilateral agreement that Telkom signed with another trade union on Thursday."

The unilateral agreement was "an attempt by Telkom to place a smokescreen in front of the real retrenchment crisis".

Unfair handling of retrenchments

"The Labour Relations Act requires employees to follow the established retrenchment process. However, this was not done at all."

He claimed there had been no consultation with employees or trade unions. Those already retrenched had also not received any severance packages.

"This is despite the fact that some of them have been employed by Telkom for more than 10 years. This is totally unacceptable and Telkom will now have take responsibility for its unfair handling of these retrenchments."

Kleynhans said contracts of the temporary and contract workers at Telkom affected by the retrenchments only expired in March and April next year.

Suspend contracts prematurely

"Since Telkom wants to suspend the contracts prematurely, a full Section 189 (of the Labour Relations Act) process must still be followed by law," Kleynhans said.

In response to Solidarity's statement, Telkom said it had to be noted that as part of the existing substantive agreement between Telkom and organised labour as represented by the Communication Workers Union (CWU), SA Communications Union (SACU) and Solidarity, there was a two-year moratorium (1 April 2009 to 31 March 2011) with regard to the forceful retrenchment of permanent employees.

Telkom added in a statement that it currently employed just over 4000 temporary staff who had been acquired through service providers (or labour brokers) to deal specifically with variations in the company's need for human resources "due to cyclical business circumstances."

A need to reduce temporary staff

"As part of the company's business optimisation process, our reviews indicate a need to reduce temporary staff in certain business areas based on current and future business requirements," Telkom said.

"It must be noted that Telkom is not directly terminating the employees of the labour brokers but is reducing the levels of service provided by these suppliers.

"The process of reviewing the services rendered by third party suppliers will continue as the company endeavours to drive down costs in our business operations and processes."

Telkom said that "temporary reduction programme" was aimed at reducing the number of temporary employees and not full-time employees.

"Therefore, as stated above, the process does not have any impact on the agreed moratorium on the forceful retrenchment of full-time employees."

Claims are 'totally baseless'

Telkom added that it had been in talks with organised labour and a Task Team — comprising of management and organised labour — had been established to deal specifically with this matter.

"The Task Team will meet during the course of next week and recommendations will be made to Telkom's Restructuring and Company Forums in order to ensure a coherent way forward with the support of organised labour," the company said.

It added that as per an agreement with the CWU, Telkom had agreed to defer the termination of temporary employees until 31 December 2009.

"In view of the above, claims that Telkom aims to shed 4000 jobs are, therefore, unfounded, inaccurate and totally baseless," it said.

Sapa

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