Little to cheer for MTN workers after strike

MTN WORKERS who went on strike for eight weeks without pay have little to celebrate as the deal struck between the company and their union falls short on demands made.

The telecoms company and the Communications Workers Union (CWU) reached an agreement yesterday, ending the strike which led to sporadic disruptions to MTN services.

However, the parties’ versions of the settlement differed substantially.

The settlement indicated that MTN made few compromises, as they stuck to their original offers to workers.

However, the CWU preached a fictitious victory to journalists at a briefing yesterday.

According to the union, the settlement entailed 8 percent bonus payments this year and 12 percent in 2016, abandoning their original 16 percent demand for both years.

In a letter to staff on May 25, just five days after the strike started, MTN human resources executive Themba Nyathi made precisely the same offer the union has now accepted on the bonus payments.

Bonus model

“The current revised MTN bonus model for 2015 (12 percent) and beyond is comprehensive and exceeds all previous expectations and demands.

This group-wide policy would affect all 22 MTN operations,” said Nyathi.

Yesterday, new chief executive Mteto Nyathi also stuck to his guns in a communiqué to staff, saying “CWU has accepted MTN’s bonus and salary increase policies”.

There was also an odd silence in the chief executive’s ing the company did not have any casual labour to convert to permanent in the first place.

Salary increases

An agreement on salary increases had also not been struck. The union said the matter would be concluded within 30 days.

“Our initial demand was 10 percent across the board. And we then moved to say 3 percent additional to what they currently got. The discussion with MTN is on the basis that there are workers that got 10 percent and other workers that got lower, depending on their performance,” said CWU general secretary Aubrey Tshabalala.

Since the start of the strike on May 20, MTN’s shares have fallen by 7.6 percent. Yesterday, the company’s shares fell by 0.02 percent to R217.95.

letter on what CWU said was an agreement that the company would convert all casual workers to permanent posts. In the past, the company shot down suggestions that it could ever be amenable to such an agreement. It said on several occasions that...