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'Arrogant' Telkom slammed
15/07/2004 16:35 - (SA)
Johannesburg - Massive opposition was mounting on Thursday against Telkom's retrenchment scare, which could lead to huge job losses.
The SA Communist Party (SACP) said Telkom's decision to retrench 1 381 employees this financial year was "blatant and arrogant".
"The continuation with the job loss blood-bath in the wake of 40% unemployment runs counter to what government and the country have committed themselves to," SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said.
"Telkom is doing the exact opposite, destroying work and deepening poverty, thus threatening to reverse some of the gains that were made during the first decade of our democracy."
Nzimande was reacting to Telkom's announcement that it had informed its recognised unions it wanted to discuss the possibility of retrenchments.
The move was also criticised by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), Solidarity and the Inkatha Freedom Party who all said they found it insensitive that further retrenchments were announced in the wake of Telkom posting a record profit.
Cosatu said on Thursday it deplored the decision by Telkom.
Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said the announcement came at the very time when the whole nation was united in a drive to implement the resolutions of the growth and develop summit (GDS) to create more jobs.
Craven said Telkom was doing the exact opposite.
"It is continuing with a policy of retrenchments which has already led to 24 453 jobs destroyed since 1997."
Craven said Telkom was flying in the face of the GDS resolutions at which leaders of government, labour, business and the community all acknowledged that massive unemployment is the country's biggest problem.
Danie de Wet, spokesperson for Solidarity, described the company's intention earlier as "absurd" particularly after Telkom had made a record profit of R4.592bn.
He also pointed fingers at Telkom executives' pay packets, saying bonuses worth R48m rewarded to directors and upper management for the past year would have been better spent on retaining workers facing dismissal.
IFP spokesperson on public enterprises Hennie Bekker said on Thursday Telkom's reasons for the move simply do not wash. "It smells of greediness," he said.
Telkom's employee relations executive George Nkadimeng said on Wednesday the idea to trim its workforce was a business imperative.
"Its driven by the need to maximise efficiencies and become more competitive in the face of increasing competition and the liberalisation of the telecommunications market.
"We are seeing increasing substitution of fixed-line for mobile services, and we are expecting to lose a portion of the fixed-line market to the second network operator once it has been licensed," he said.
Telkom indicated that headcount reductions were likely to be driven largely by natural attrition that was currently around 4.5%, and by voluntary severance and early retirement packages.
The SACP however rejected Telkom's use of "abstract international benchmarks" on achieving a particular ratio between employees and a number of telephone lines.
"These so-called international benchmarks must be judged against the realities of the country, and against the challenge of creating work and fighting poverty," Nzimande said.
The SACP and Cosatu called on the government, as a major shareholder, to immediately intervene.
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Jeez, these guys just don't give a shti about anyone but their shareholders
<font color="navy"><font size="1"><b>Where others have progress, we have Telkom.</b>
Hellkom website - www.hellkom.co.za</font id="size1"></font id="navy">
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