CWU STATEMENT ON VOLUNTARY SEVERANCE PACKAGES BY TELKOM

10 February 2011

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has noted with extreme sadness the news that TELKOM is going ahead offering its workers Voluntary Severance Packages. This, Telkom does, whilst South Africans are still reeling from recent allegations that the entity is encircled by a lot of corruption, nepotism, bribery and fraud by its top management.

Instead of Telkom dealing with allegations concerning its corporate governance issues that continue to scare the whole country and the world, allegations of the looting of the public funds by friends and family members of senior managers, they seem to think that they can simply exonerate themselves from their alleged blunders and drop their failures squarely on the feet of the workers by suggesting these voluntary severance packages

As CWU, we will fight tooth and nail against this atrocious assault on Telkom employees. We view this as clear indication of undermining the resolutions of the 52^nd National Congress of the ruling African National Congress and its alliance partners (SACP and COSATU) on Decent Work and Job Creation. As a country we are committing ourselves to an era of Job creation and not Job-shedding as some at Telkom seem to think.

CWU, as a matter of principle, will discourage workers to take voluntary severance packages as offered by Telkom.  This is based on the premise that Telkom being a state parastatal, cannot be allowed to embarrass our government by acting contrary to pronouncements by the Polokwane National Conference of the ANC, the January 8^th statement as delivered by the President of the ANC, Cde Jacob Zuma, and the recently held ANC Lekgotla around the issue of Decent Work and Job Creation. 

CWU regards this move by Telkom as pursuance of the neo-liberal agenda that is repugnant to everything that the ANC-led tripartite alliance stands for around the issue of job creation.  Telkom's move is also viewed as a deliberate insult and a slap in the face to CWU given the thrust of discussions in the recently held CWU national congress guided by the theme "Building CWU to advance Job Creation, Decent Work and Socialism'.

Statement issued by Matankana Mothapo, Communication Workers Union National Spokesperson, February 10 2011

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