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Johanneburg - Solidarity has asked the CCMA to intervene in the retrenchment of about 4 000 temporary and contract workers at Telkom.
Solidarity also regards Telkom's announcement that the retrenchments would be postponed to December 31 as a mere deferring of the problem and the trade union will not accept it," union spokesperson Jaco Kleynhans said in a statement on Friday.
Employees would originally have been retrenched next Friday. Simply postponing them was "not fair" and that the process should be restarted.
"The postponing of the Telkom retrenchments emanates from a unilateral agreement that Telkom signed with another trade union on Thursday."
The unilateral agreement was "an attempt by Telkom to place a smokescreen in front of the real retrenchment crisis".
"The Labour Relations Act requires employees to follow the established retrenchment process. However, this was not done at all."
He claimed there had been no consultation with employees or trade unions. Those already retrenched had also not received any severance packages.
"This is despite the fact that some of them have been employed by Telkom for more than 10 years. This is totally unacceptable and Telkom will now have take responsibility for its unfair handling of these retrenchments."
Kleynhans said contracts of the temporary and contract workers at Telkom affected by the retrenchments only expired in March and April next year.
"Since Telkom wants to suspend the contracts prematurely, a full Section 189 [of the Labour Relations Act] process must still be followed by law," Kleynhans said.
Telkom could not immediately comment.
- Sapa
