Telkom, Trudon job cuts face union’s Labour Court challenge

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) is back in the Labour Court over more job cuts in the telecommunications sector, at one of Telkom’s wholly-owned subsidiaries.

A company called Trudon – formerly The Yellow Pages, which was, according to the court papers, rendered obsolete by modern technology – announced plans in January to retrench as many as 80 of its 180 staff. This happened on the same day that Telkom made a similar announcement to cut up to 3,000 jobs.

Telkom also has a case against the CWU pending before the court, with judgment in that matter expected today.

The CWU’s urgent application against Trudon was set down to be heard yesterday, but was postponed for judgment in the case against Telkom to be delivered.

The union’s counsel, advocate Malcolm Lennox, explained in court that the two were “very similar” and that a ruling on one might have an impact on the other.

In his affidavit before the court, the CWU’s Nathen Bowers accused Trudon of having tried to sidestep the consultation process and said all the company was doing was “going through the motions and implementing its strategy”.

He argued that Trudon had started offering staff voluntary exit packages without consulting the union. The Telkom matter also revolves around the same issue.

Bowers said there had, at the time of his affidavit, only been two facilitated consultations and that there had been no consultation with the union on the voluntary severance packages (VSP) or the voluntary early retirement packages (VERP) before applications were opened in mid-February.

“Quite apart from the content of the offer, which Trudon has not consulted on, another pertinent issue is the timing of when the offer will be made,” Bowers said.

“If one imagines the thought process of an affected employee – given the fact that they are threatened with a possible retrenchment and in that case only being offered the statutory minimum as a severance package, such an employee might well consider a VSP or VERP to obtain the maximum benefit.”

But, he went on, this might not be that employee’s best option.

“At this stage, that employee does not know if his or her position is actually redundant. A decision to accept such [an] offer may well be misinformed,” he said.

Bowers said the CWU was not opposed to voluntary exit packages being offered, “Rather, it wants to consult on the terms of the VSP and VERP’s in order to obtain the most beneficial offer to its members.”

Trudon had not, as of yesterday morning, filed an answering affidavit.

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