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Union takes Telkom merger to court
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17 April 2009
Lawyers giggle with delight, toothy grins. |
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Telkom, Vodacom, Vodafone and the Department of Communications are being taken to court by the Communication Workers Union, it said on Friday in a statement.
The union served the three telecoms companies and the department with notice of an urgent court interdict application in a bid to halt the merger transaction between Vodacom and Vodafone.
Last year Telkom announced the sale of a 15 percent stake in cellular operator Vodacom, worth R22.5 billion, to multinational cellular operator Vodafone.
The CWU said its main bone of contention was the fact that the organisation was not properly consulted by Telkom in terms of both legislation and the recognition agreement regulating relations between its members and the company.
"We had no other option but to use the law to force all parties to properly consult CWU, as we have members in both Telkom and Vodacom and about 29,000 members in the information communication and technology sector in general."
The CWU also believed that the public interest had been "deliberately ignored and compromised".
It said the issue should have been considered through a process of public hearings by the Independent Communication Commission of SA (Icasa).
"These hearings were not held and the general public’s interests were therefore disregarded," the union said.
"Telkom and all others involved in this transaction have shown gross undermining of our organisation and the public in general, in the way that this matter was handled," it added.
According to the CWU, Telkom’s CEO and its board chairperson had deliberately failed to honour a meeting facilitated by the Department of Communications on April 14 where engagement between organised labour and Telkom was to have taken place.
"This conduct will perhaps be explained by Telkom through the courts of our country... that’s where will meet on the April 21 2009," the union said.
Telkom was not able to comment immediately.
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