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Telkom workers strike

Aug 03 2009 10:30

Johannesburg - Thousands of workers at fixed-line group Telkom began striking on Monday, according to the Communications Workers Union (CWU). This is the latest industrial action to hit the country despite recession.

The protest at Telkom, Africa's biggest fixed-line telephone operator, began only days after the end of a five-day strike by tens of thousands of council workers that saw rubbish pile up on the country's streets and key services paralysed.

The union, which represents 44 000 workers, said about 3 500 Telkom workers in four of SA's nine provinces began the two-day strike to push their demands for pay increases.

"We expect that quite a sizable number of our members will heed the call for a stayaway," CWU General-Secretary Gallant Roberts said.

"In the process some of the members in those provinces will also be picketing at some of the Telkom establishments."

The wave of strikes in South Africa have challenged President Jacob Zuma's economic policies over the past month, as the unions that helped bring him to power in April elections flexed their muscles, seeking a payback for their support.

Zuma is in a difficult position. He is indebted to unions that are a crucial part of his support base, but boosting government spending could worry foreign investors in the midst of South Africa's first recession since 1992.

To end the council strike, officials were forced to agree a 13% pay rise, just below the 15% demanded by the unions and almost double the inflation rate.

Further double-digit pay settlements in the private and public sectors would put added strain on Africa's biggest economy, compounding the impact of a 31.3% increase in electricity prices last month to drive inflation higher.

Pressure on the government has also come from poor township residents, who have demonstrated to back their demands for better living conditions for millions of blacks who still lack adequate housing, electricity and water 15 years after the end of apartheid.

- Sapa

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Benzo
Aug 03 2009 12:46 Report this comment

Can't blame the illiterate poor for thinking that the trough is full when they see their bosses go home with millions in salary and bonuses and shiny Mercs or 4x4's. Link bottom salaries to top incomes via a fixed multiplier to ease the tension of the income disparity. Hire clever negotiators, not the destructive and primitive thinkers.

PROLETAR@Steven
Aug 03 2009 11:41 Report this comment

Steven, it is not so complex. The SA solution requires the rich, each of them, to give a little, and the poor, must receive a little more, the workforce of SA cannot be accused of not working hard, it is their sweat and blood that makes the SA economy pump. Through all this sensationalised "chaos", the Rand has strengthened, so dont buy the sensationalist disinformation, it is not good for your blood pressure.

Majik
Aug 03 2009 11:40 Report this comment

Telkom is so useless I doubt anyone will notice!

nana
Aug 03 2009 11:35 Report this comment

@Barbara, you are so right CC. So many people are not getting any kinda increase or bonus, not to mention those loosing their jobs due to recession, but here they are, asking for unreasonable increase. C'mon Guys! Shouldn't u be greatful that you still have yo jobs. If not, go open yo own company and we will hear from u. Strike has become a fashion in SA, it's soooo disgusting.

Sauvignon
Aug 03 2009 11:32 Report this comment

@George - Telkom is 37% owned by the SA government. Communism is a failed ideology. Sure, people should have a right to strike, just like employers should have a right to fire them for doing so. A job is an earned privilege, not a right. Reward productivity, punish lack of productivity. That is natures way.

StevenD
Aug 03 2009 11:30 Report this comment

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

PROLETARIAN
Aug 03 2009 11:19 Report this comment

The strikes are sensationalized by the media. The pauper ask a small increase, on an already low income, to avoid ultra poverty. This generates anxiety in the rich classes, who feel their comfortable lifestyles threatened, the media capitalise by feeding this angst, thereby generating sales of newspapers, and higher advertisement sales. SA's must learn to think critically about the media. The fact is, workers keep SA going, and they get paid peanuts. They are not monkeys.

Interesting
Aug 03 2009 11:11 Report this comment

So maybe apartheid wasn't the only reason that Africa is poor...imagine that! They thought they would all be millionaires when it was abolished only to realise that it is the very government that they voted for that is stealing the billions the poor would have gotten in the past 15 years. There is just no morality in this country and that is the major problem.


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