The New Age reports that the Communication Workers Union (CWU) on Wednesday described its meeting with Telkom over its five week long strike as an “academic exercise”.  

The union’s general secretary Aubrey Tshabalala said that if the union’s negotiations with the telecoms company failed to yield positive results, the union would have no qualms in ratcheting up its industrial action on Telkom’s operations.  He lamented Telkom’s 6% salary increase earlier this year, which was linked to performance-based bonuses.  Tshabalala added that the union’s demand for an 11% wage hike was non-negotiable.  One of the CWU’s long-standing demands is the removal of Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko.  Meantime, the union has asked for the ANC’s intervention in its squabble with Maseko and Tshabalala described a meeting with the ANC on Friday as “progressive”, even though the ANC was “playing carefully” and wanted to be seen as neutral.

Read this report by Bonolo Selebano in full on page 4 of The New Age of 8 September 2016

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page