The Competition Commission says Telkom and the Competition Tribunal need to be approached with the concern raised by Telkom employees this week around job security.
More than 3 500 Telkom employees, represented by trade union Solidarity, appealed to the commission to take their job security into account before having the proposed R3.5 billion fine imposed on the company.
The commission says Solidarity has come in at a stage when closing arguments have been delivered and the decision is just left to the tribunal.
“We've told them they have two options here. They can take their concerns directly to the tribunal or express it to the management at Telkom more strongly, because those are the parties that can now work with this concern. They must go to Telkom management and say no matter what happens at the tribunal, they need to be sensitive to this.”
Family concern
The commission wants Telkom to pay the hefty fine for allegedly abusing its dominant position and cutting downstream service providers out of the market. Both parties presented closing arguments to the Competition Tribunal last month.
Telkom employees' written pleas were presented to the commission on Tuesday. Solidarity asked the commission to take heed of the pleas of more than 3 500 Telkom employees and their families (more than 17 000 people) before announcing the fine. “It would be a tragedy if thousands of Telkom employees had to suffer the consequences of something they had nothing to do with,” says Marius Croucamp, Solidarity spokesperson.
“The reality is that a huge fine would deal a serious blow to Telkom's profitability and the possibility of large-scale retrenchments cannot be ruled out. Although the trade union believes that justice must be served, it may not be at the expense of Telkom employees' job security.”
Telkom's share price was down at the close of business on 13 February by 1.4% and, at around 11am, on 14 February, it was down 2.4%. This was immediately after the first parts of the closing arguments were heard by the tribunal and the commission stuck to the figure of R3.5 billion.
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