Time for some union busting
I have in the past argued that local loop unbundling was the only way that Telkom could truly move beyond its past as one half of the Post Office and become truly competitive.
I have also argued that the biggest threat to local loop unbundling (LLU) was going to be the unions. The comments from the Communications Workers Union (CWU) at the LLU hearings this week have largely borne out my prejudices.
The interesting thing is that at the moment we have two unions (Cosatu and the CWU) arguing against two different issues – Cosatu against the Walmart deal and the CWU against LLU.
While both are, in my opinion, equally likely to fail in achieving their desired outcome, at least Cosatu is both being honest about its reasons for opposing the Walmart deal and is performing its core function – protecting jobs.
However, the CWU appears to be completely disingenuous about its reasons for opposing LLU. According to reports, the reason for the CWU opposing LLU is that it will benefit only rich whites and the poor people out in the sticks will get nothing from it.
That is probably true, but you have to remember that LLU is focussed on offering consumers choice, but only if there is an economic imperative for that to happen.
Out in the sticks there are firstly very few landlines anyway (most communications happen via cellphone) and even if the local loop is unbundled, those people with Telkom lines will still have Telkom lines, so nothing would change.
What irritates me the most is that the CWU’s mandate is not to speak for the poor, telecommunications deprived people in the deep rural areas. Its mandate is to speak for its members and this is where they are failing miserably.
The simple issue is that the one constituency that is going to be most affected by LLU is the part of Telkom that drives around in white bakkies and fixes our telephone lines.
Depending on what form of unbundling is dictated by ICASA, these people might have more work to do or might find themselves working for a separate division of Telkom.
In any case there is change coming and the one thing unions do not like is change. Unless of course it is a double digit percentage change in wages.
The problem that the CWU has is that it couldn’t go into the hearings and say: “We don’t like change, our members won’t be happy, so it mustn’t happen.” If they did that they would be laughed out of Pinmill Farm (ICASA’s offices). So they tried to take the moral high-ground and failed miserably.
The simple fact is this: they have known that this has been coming for years. They have had plenty of time to prepare and all they could come up with is “think about the little people”.
If I were Telkom I would be pushing to get rid of the one part of the business that costs money. They would be able to isolate the most unionised part of their workforce into a single, separate division and they would be able to focus on the parts of the business that actually make money.
If Telkom says that the local loop runs at a deficit, then why would it want to hold on to that millstone?
The local loop should not be profit centre; it should make enough money to cover its costs and any profits should be ploughed back into the business, to lay new cables, to improve systems and to make sure that when a link goes down, it is up again in hours and not days.
That way the consumers will be happy, the ISPs will be happy and Telkom’s shareholders will be happy.
In fact, the only people that won’t be happy are the unions, and they never are, so nothing will change.
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