Unions have objected to Vodacom directors being issued units in the company's broad-based black empowerment scheme.
Vodacom has granted three of its directors over 2.5 million units in its R7.5 billion empowerment scheme.
CFO Rob Shuter was awarded 1.34 million YeboYethu units, company secretary Sandi Linford received 550 382 units and Vodacom Business director Steven Hayward gained 752 272 units.
YeboYethu is Vodacom's R7.5 billion broad-based black economic empowerment scheme, which was implemented last July. It offers the public, and staff, an opportunity to own shares indirectly in Vodacom SA as YeboYethu owns 3.44% of the local company.
The directors were awarded the shares because the empowerment plan allows staff to take part in the empowerment scheme.
Disadvantaged
Solidarity spokesman Jaco Kleynhans says directors should not take part in employee share ownership schemes. He explains that the shares allocated to them could be better used in empowering staff.
Solidarity has only recently moved into the cellular space and has 100 members at Vodacom.
However, the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents about 15% of the cellular company's staff, is also not happy with the allocations.
Secretary-general Gallant Roberts says the scheme should benefit previously-disadvantaged employees and not white directors. “As a matter of principle, the union is sceptical of such allocations [to white directors].”
The union says the share scheme is unfair, because it does not benefit contract workers. The CWU complains that the reserved share allocation for future staff “is reserved for those who are in higher position” as the company employs contract workers, and it is unclear if temporary staff will be employed permanently at a later stage.
“We're saying if the company was serious about the empowerment, the current staff employed under labour brokers should have been sufficiently allocated these shares, since we believe they had contributed immensely to the success of the company.”
The union adds its “struggle” is to make sure the empowerment of workers is not reduced to a “window-dressing campaign”, leaving workers worse off than previously.
It says broad-based empowerment is meant to address the imbalances of the past, and “not to be manipulated to benefit a few”.
Staff shares
The allocation of units to permanent South African staff is weighted 70:30 in favour of black staff, says a Vodacom spokesman, responding to the union's criticism. YeboYethu allows staff to take part in up to a quarter of the total R7.5 billion deal. The staff aspect of the scheme is worth R1.875 billion.
The share offer to the black public, which closed last September, made 14.4 million ordinary unlisted shares in YeboYethu available to black South Africans and companies. The offer attracted 102 531 applications.
YeboYethu chairman Zarina Bassa says, in the scheme's 2009 annual report, that the allocation of the units to staff must meet the Department of Trade and Industry's codes. As a result, 70% of the units must always be in the hands of black staff.
In addition, 30% of the units must belong to black females, and the scheme is “skewed in favour of lower level employees,” Bassa says.
Three-quarters of the 1.875 billion units available to the YeboYethu employee share ownership plan was allocated to staff in September last year, with the balance being made available to future employees for the next five years on a reduced sliding scale.
In August 2015, the units will be converted to YeboYethu shares, and staff can sell the shares to the black public.
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