South African union Solidarity is completing its mandate process after communication gateways have been restored.
HumanIPO reported last week on Solidarity’s claims of being sabotaged by part state-owned fixed lined provider Telkom when emails were blacklisted during the scheduled mandating.
The emailing issues were resolved on Friday, July 27, one day after Telkom revealed its signed agreement with the Communication Workers Union (CWU).
Now making use of both SMS and emailing, the mandate outcome is planned to be finalised by tomorrow (Tuesday), when an industrial council meeting within Solidarity will take place.
Although legal action against Telkom was considered last week, the union will not lay charges if they are able to complete the mandate without interruption.
With strikes still on the table, the union is awaiting membership response, after which a decision will be made based on the weight of participation and consequences.
Speaking to HumanIPO, Marius Croucamp, spokesperson at Solidarity, said: “We’ve got the agreement that Telkom has signed with the CWU and we have tried as much as we can. We will take it from there.”
However, he explained Solidarity’s disregard of Telkom’s calculations to prove CWU as the majority union, making the stance of the other unions irrelevant to prevent the operator’s proposals from being implemented.
According to Croucamp, Telkom’s calculation of its released figures does not concur with the law as stipulated by the Labour Act, which defines the majority union in terms of its union membership as comprising of the majority of workers employed by the employer.
“I don’t know how they work out the math, but that is not how the law interprets what a majority union is,” the spokesperson said.
“It has to define a majority by the total employees employed by them. You can’t just add people up and then make your sums like that.”
Solidarity also plans meetings with the other unions involved – the South African Communication Union (SACU) and the CWU.
