ITWeb reports that the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has denied Telkom's claims that its members intimidated and threatened non-striking workers outside its campus in Centurion on Monday.  

However, Telkom's group executive for communication, Jacqui O'Sullivan, said that CWU members "physically shoved our people and threatened them with violence" and that she "was personally a recipient of this attempt at intimidation".  As a result, Telkom obtained an urgent interim court order interdicting and restraining the CWU and its members from intimidating and threatening Telkom non-striking staff.  The CWU began protests at Telkom on 1 August with a go-slow, but since ramped that up into a full-blown strike on 11 August.  The crux of the strike comes back to the CWU's displeasure with a collaborative partnership agreement that Telkom signed with trade unions Solidarity and the SA Communications Union in June.  The CWU is presently demanding an 11% annual salary increase, a three-year moratorium on retrenchments at Telkom, a better gain sharing scheme for workers, six months' maternity leave, as well as a more transformed executive.  According to the CWU’s Aubrey Tshabalala, "the ball is in Telkom's court".

• Read this informative report by Paula Gilbert in full at ITWeb

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