Johannesburg - Thousands of people across the country face being without landlines and the internet following a spate of sabotage acts on Telkom facilities.
A number of facilities were targeted in Midrand, Pretoria West, Silverton, Durban, Pinetown, Pietermaritzburg, Makhado and Musina.
Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) on Monday blockaded access to Telkom offices and facilities. The union is demanding an 11 percent increase for all bargaining unit employees and the phone giant believes the sabotage is linked to the strike.
“This is not vandalism, these criminals who damaged our property knew what they were doing,” said Jacqui O’Sullivan, Telkom group executive for communication. “Cables have been deliberately cut to cause maximum damage. Entire street distribution cabinets, which are located in neighbourhoods to serve multiple streets at a time, have been ripped apart and in a few instances yesterday, set on fire. Water or other liquids were poured on equipment knowing it would be more difficult to repair quickly.”
At some sites, specialist equipment was required to access the fibre cables and the criminals were clearly using this as it is not commonly available.
“The SAPS, with support from additional investigators and Telkom’s own forensics team, are currently pursuing a number of good leads to identify these saboteurs,” O’Sullivan said.
On Monday, employees were barred from entering the Telkom campus in Centurion, and were allegedly intimidated and threatened.
Telkom secured an urgent interim order to interdict the union from illegal activities such as blockading entrances and intimidating staff.
The interdict also instructed CWU members participating in the strike to position themselves 50m away from Telkom premises.
O’Sullivan said the company had more than met the demands of the union.
In June, the South African Communication Union (Sacu) and Solidarity signed a collaborative partnership agreement with Telkom following protracted negotiations, including substantive wage negotiations.
“While the CWU at the time indicated their intention to sign, that has unfortunately not yet happened,” she said.
The primary agreements were:
* No forced retrenchments for the next two years.
* Outsourcing to be limited to fewer than 1 000 employees over the next two years.
* The introduction of a new variable incentive scheme, known as Performance Pays, which will replace the previous short-term incentive scheme. Performance Pays will focus on customer satisfaction and front-line productivity metrics meaning employees who are achieving their targets could earn up to 12 percent more, per month, through Performance Pays.
* An increase of 6 percent on basic salaries payable from April 1.
“We have made important improvements within Telkom in the past two years, but our fundamental concerns remain poor customer service and inconsistent productivity,” O’Sullivan said.
To change the culture of the organisation to one that prioritised the customer and drove productivity, the company must incentivise the right behaviour, she said.
“Across the board, increases have been standard at Telkom for years. Those increases have done nothing to improve our customer service. That has to change and Performance Pays is how we will make that change,” she said.
The company spent months negotiating and met the unions more than halfway on a number of issues, which is why Sacu and Solidarity were comfortable to sign the partnership agreement, she said.
Telkom’s group chief executive, Sipho Maseko, has announced a R500 000 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the saboteurs. This reward is available to any person with pertinent information.
Telkom has asked that any person with information related to these crimes contact their crime reporting line at 0800 124 000.
The Star