South Africa’s Telkom has dismissed allegations they are “playing dirty” by blocking a Solidarity member’s emails and said the matter was fixed minutes of a computer re-boot.
Earlier today someone from the Solidarity union, which is currently one of three unions in protracted negotiations with the part state-owned ADSL provider over wage increases, tweeted that members had had their communications blocked.
Telkom wage talks: Telkom playing dirty as Telkom is blocking union’s electronic communication to its members.
— Solidariteit (@solidariteit) July 19, 2013
It was alleged specifically that emails could not be sent.
A statement by Telkom, however has poured scorn on the allegations and Telkom spokesperson Pynee Chetty told HumanIPO he thought the tweet was “unfortunate” because it was based on “inaccurate information” and he hoped the union would apologise.
The Telkom statement said: “On discussion with the trade union representative (the one responsible for disseminating Solidarity’s communication to employees) it was confirmed that they had experienced technical problems with the PC being used to communicate (send email) to their members, and that this PC had been unable to send or receive email.
“When the trade union staff were contacted by Telkom technical support they were advised to re-boot the PC. This was done at approximately 1130 today (19 July) and it has been reported that all emails have now been successfully sent.”
Chetty also pointed out that the first Telkom were aware of the problem was when their media unit had been informed by reporters asking about the tweet.
It was the media unit which then contacted Telkom’s IT Service Desk.
Telkom’s statement added: “Telkom further confirms that Telkom has no technical or procedural restriction in place that would prevent any union from communicating with its members via any means.
“Telkom has policies and procedures in place that protect and ensure the rights of all staff to secure and reliable communication. These policies strongly support and enforce the constitutional rights of all employees to a safe and secure working environment.”
