Johannesburg - The Cosatu-aligned Communication Workers Union says it has exhausted all possible options to compel the government to take decisive action to save the Post Office and to end job cuts at Telkom.
Now the union has marched on Cosatu’s ally, the ANC, promising hell and damnation if the ruling party does not accede to its demands.
This could include a nationwide strike, resulting in telecommunications being brought to a standstill.
Read: We want the ANC to listen to us: CWU
The ANC has seven days to respond.
The union demanded that Telkom management halt outsourcing and retrenchments, and that workers who had taken retrenchment packages due to enormous pressure from management be reinstated.
It also called for the ruling party to remove Telkom chief executive Sipho Maseko and the board’s chairperson, to be replaced by “conscious people”.
For the Post Office, the CWU demanded that all workers be converted to permanent positions, the 2014 salary increase be implemented and backdated, and that the 2015/16 salary dispute be resolved.
It also called for the Treasury to replace bank guarantees with actual funding and for all state institutions to use the SA Post Office as their postal and sole courier agency.
The CWU leadership, which included its president Clyde Mervin and general secretary Aubrey Tshabalala, yesterday led hundreds of members through Joburg’s streets to hand over a long list of demands to ANC national office-bearers.
Tshabalala said a proposed programme had already been drafted.
“We are going to the NEC (national executive committee) of the CWU; we already have a proposed programme of mass action in place. Should they not respond, the country should expect a mass demonstration and protest from Telkom and Post Office workers throughout the country.”
To the workers’ dismay, none of the ANC’s national office-bearers were available to receive their memorandum. An employee promised to deliver the union’s grievances by Monday.
THE STAR