PROFILE Storm brewing
Telecommunications bosses should brace themselves for major disruptions that could follow the launch of a new trade union federation. This is the parting shot from Themba Nyathi, MTN SA’s outgoing human resources executive.
By the time the federation under former Cosatu secretarygeneral Zwelinzima Vavi gets off the ground Nyathi will be long gone. He leaves the company at the end of June.
Last year, for the first time in his nearly 18 years at MTN SA, it had to extend formal recognition to the Communication Workers Union (CWU). MTN was forced to engage with labour about salaries after workers embarked on an illegal strike that claimed the job of CEO Ahmad Farroukh and led to a loss in revenue when call centres, the distribution centre and stores became dysfunctional as a result.
Before he leaves, Nyathi has to finalise wage negotiations with CWU, and the parties have locked horns over demands for a 10% wage increase and an R18,000 annual housing subsidy.
Nyathi says it is neither the worst strike in the company’s history nor an ongoing contractual dispute with former MTN airtime vendor Direct Merchandising Group (that has flared up again), which is claiming his scalp. Nor, he says, is there truth in speculation that MTN SA CEO Mteto Nyati wants Nyathi’s head. “If I were not seeing eye to eye with Mteto I wouldn’t be leading negotiations with the union,” Nyathi says.
He resigned from MTN in July 2015 during the strike and when Nyati took over as CEO. But his bosses begged him to stay another 12 months while the company was finding its feet in the shift from a mobile voice to a data-led business.
Nyathi, who rakes in millions outside his MTN role (through his businesses in construction, freight and restaurants) now wants to focus on his 340 employees, new contracts and to spend more time on his Mpumalanga farm.
“I really don’t need to work. I’ve not needed to work for the past six or seven years,” he says.
An emotional attachment tethered him to MTN, he adds.
Nyathi joined the firm in 1999 as an HR officer at 22, and rose quickly through the ranks to become the chief HR executive. His BA law degree from Wits University has come in handy in managing the evolving and complex HR function.
The changing requirements in the business pushed MTN to fund Nyathi’s MBA studies in the Netherlands seven years ago.
But his windfall was the unbundling of Newshelf 664 shares in MTN in 2009 that produced millionaires among top employees. This payout — Nyathi won’t disclose the value — was the seed for his business on the side, which has since mushroomed into an empire.
But Nyathi is adamant that he has given to MTN as much as he has received. MTN has attracted Best Employer accolades for the past three years, mainly for the graduate placement programme that Nyathi introduced. He has also led a programme to fasttrack promotions of technically skilled people who are groomed to become managers.
He has been a member of MTN’s executive committee — the youngest — for 13 years. When he realised last year he was the last one left of the original committee and he was serving under his seventh CEO, he decided to call it a day. There is no evidence that has been brought to my attention nor to the attention of the National Prosecuting Authority that the investigation of the SA Revenue Service’s rogue unit is politically motivated. The NPA is not filthy or corrupt as some politicians would want you to believe. NPA head Shaun Abrahams denies involvement in a plot to unseat the finance minister.