On the dotted line

By Candice Jones for Telkom

Johannesburg, 17 Aug 2009

Telkom and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) will put pen to paper on Wednesday to formally end a protracted wage dispute.

Following a provisional agreement struck over the weekend, all CWU members will be back at the office today.

Telkom's executive for employee relations, Meshack Dlamini, says: “Telkom and the CWU have reached an in-principle agreement, which we hope to sign by Wednesday.”

The parties have been at loggerheads over wage negotiations in a year-long dispute. While a settlement was reached last year, the union reignited the discussions a few months ago, unhappy with the implementation of a substantive agreement signed three years ago.

Over the last few weeks, union members staged official strike action, demanding that Telkom close the financial gap between workers before it implemented a stipulated increase of 7.5%. The CWU also marched from the Union Buildings to Pretoria central last week, and picketed outside the Council for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.

The CWU says Telkom has acceded to its demand to move certain workers into higher earnings brackets, before the increase is implemented. The new agreement stipulates the 7.5% will be applied to housing, medical aid, standby allowance, as well as the general salary increase.

The increase will also be backdated to the beginning of April and the union will receive a new gain-sharing agreement, which will become a flat 16% on 1 April next year.

Meanwhile, allegations of misconduct on behalf of CWU members during strike action have been ignored by the union. It has released no statement, nor commented on the investigations being conducted by Telkom into alleged sabotage of Telkom equipment.

During the first wave of CWU action, Telkom released a statement saying it was investigating damage done to cable infrastructure and street distribution cabinets, which it suspected had been broken by striking workers.

The company has not yet released the results of the investigation.