Johannesburg - Mobile phone giant MTN does not live up to the spirit of its employment equity plan, the Communications Workers' Union (CWU) said on Thursday.

"The CWU deplores the manner in which MTN handles matters relating to Employment Equity as enshrined in the Employment Equity Act of 1998," it added in a statement.

It said that in terms of the Act, joint structures between representatives of the workers and management for the purpose of development and implementation of Employment Equity Plan had to be established.

"The main objective of this piece of legislation is to transform and democratise the workplace, taking into cognisance levels and categories of employees from what is called designated groups ie blacks, women and the disabled people."

The CWU said it was, however, disappointing that although MTN had established these structures in 2008 and in addition developed a plan to implement equity related matters, it didn't live up to the spirit of the plan.

"This principally happens in the form of consistent 'shifting of the goal posts' in ensuring that the targets contained in the plan are achieved.

"As a consequence, workers' representatives in the committee are harassed and threatened with dismissal when they dare raise their fingers in pursuit of the interests of the constituency they represent."

The CWU alleged that a workers' representative had been threatened with disciplinary charges for having, together with his colleagues in the Employment Equity Committee, circulated a report to workers expressing misgivings about the company's policies.

"The matter has since been mutually resolved between the CWU and MTN."

However, the union appealed to the department of labour to put MTN "under the spotlight" as far as employment equity was concerned.

"This is even more acute in the light of the fact that the current Employment Equity Plan submitted to the department was done unilaterally by the company at the exclusion of workers' input."

MTN could not comment immediately.

- Sapa