Mobile phone company MTN does not live up to the spirit of its employment equity plan, the Communications Workers' Union (CWU) said on Thursday.

"The CWU deplores the manner in which MTN handles matters relating to Employment Equity as enshrined in the Employment Equity Act of 1998," CWU said in a statement.

It said in terms of the act, joint structures must be established between workers' representatives and management to develop and implement the Employment Equity Plan.

'Shifting goalposts'

"The main objective of this piece of legislation is to transform and democratise the workplace, taking into cognisance levels and categories of employees from what is called designated groups i.e. blacks, women and the disabled people."

The CWU said it was, however, disappointing that although MTN had established these structures in 2008 and developed a plan to implement equity related matters, it did not live up to the spirit of the plan.

"This principally happens in the form of consistent 'shifting of the goal posts' in ensuring that the targets contained in the plan are achieved.

Threats and harassment

"As a consequence, workers' representatives in the committee are harassed and threatened with dismissal when they dare raise their fingers in pursuit of the interests of the constituency they represent."

The CWU alleged that a workers' representative had been threatened with disciplinary charges for having, together with his colleagues in the Employment Equity Committee, circulated a report to workers expressing misgivings about the company's policies.

"The matter has since been mutually resolved between the CWU and MTN."

However, the union appealed to the department of labour to put MTN "under the spotlight" as far as employment equity was concerned.

"This is even more acute in the light of the fact that the current Employment Equity Plan submitted to the department was done unilaterally by the company at the exclusion of workers' input."

MTN: Policies firmly established

Responding to the union's allegations, Themba Nyathi, MTN's group executive of human resources, said the company was satisfied the CWU recognised that employment equity forums had been established.

"Such forums were established with a sole purpose to democratise and ensure appropriate representativity of all staff members in issues pertaining to the stipulations of the Employment Equity Act," Nyathi said.

He said the forums had been set up through democratic elections and all representatives had been elected by staff members. 

Nyathi said MTN’s five year employment equity plan was fully debated by the elected forum members before being submitted to the department of labour.

"Elected employment equity forum members made recommendations which were included in the employment equity plan," he said.

The labour department had accepted it, he added.

Salary equity

"However, the department of labour indicated that MTN needed to work more in addressing salary equity issues."

Nyathi said that to date, salary increases had been offered to over 552 black employees.

 "Like all organisations that exist in South Africa, MTN is not perfect, hence we constantly seek the advice of the department of labour and the CWU."

In the past two years, Nyathi said MTN had made several acquisitions.

"As a result some of the employment equity targets set had to be reviewed and adjusted in consultation with the department of labour and the employment equity forum."

Nyathi said disagreements had arisen "but at the end we all adopted a rational way forward as advised by the department of labour".

He said MTN would continue to work with the CWU to create better working conditions for all the company's staff members with equal opportunities for all.

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