Union accuses ANC of throwing workers to the wolves

The president of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has berated the African National Congress (ANC) for “defending Nkandla” and not doing the same for workers.

This came as the Cosatu-affiliated union handed over a memorandum of its grievances and demands to the ruling party at Luthuli House in central Johannesburg on Thursday.

CWU president Clyde Mervin addressed the crowd of about 200 shop stewards and union members outside the ANC headquarters. The group had marched there from Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown to protest against job losses and poor working conditions at state-owned companies.

Mervin called for the ousting of Telkom’s chief executive officer Sipho Maseko and the board of Telkom by the end of the month.

Mervin threatened to hold a night vigil outside Luthuli House if the ruling party did not heed their call to fire the Telkom bosses.

“The whole Telkom board is useless. Telkom employees go to sleep and don’t know whether they will (still) have a job in the morning‚” Mervin said.

Aubrey Shabalala‚ secretary-general of the CWU‚ said all state entities must be examples to the private sector in fighting inequality‚ poverty and unemployment.

He also spoke out against the lack of “political action” to revitalise the South African Post Office. The union said it wanted casual workers at the Post Office to be taken on as permanent staff and insisted on back pay for Post Office workers.

Shabalala accused the ANC of double standards and allowing state owned companies like Telkom to fall into the hands of “white monopoly capital”.

“There is someone’s wife in this building that has shares in Bidvest‚ the very same company Telkom is outsourcing to and retrenching workers.

“As we speak there are an additional 1400 employees who are scheduled to leave at the end of this month ‚” Shabalala said.

The CWU said it had given the ANC two weeks notice that it would present the memorandum but no senior officials of the party were available to accept it.

Elizabeth Taunyane‚ who works for the general manager in the office of ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe‚ met the union members and accepted the memorandum.

Taunyane said she would hand it to her boss‚ Ignatius Jacobs‚ when he returned from the Eastern Cape where all the senior ANC officials have convened for the launch of the party’s election manifesto at the weekend.