Telkom has been engaging with organised labour on the outsourcing of various
business elements, as announced in February.
Telkom has identified a series of actions to unlock further cost efficiencies
and improve customer service, in line with the company’s multi-year turnaround
strategy. One such action involves the use of the Section 197 process of
the Labour Relations Act, which would see certain services outsourced as
going concerns. Telkom’s call centre operations and staff are to be outsourced,
as well as certain legacy IT billing systems, an internal printing division
and the network and operations and retail supply chain sections.
Companies may initiate outsourcing processes under section 197 of the
Labour Relations Act to transfer staff to another company. The law requires
that affected staff are transferred with the same or better packages and
benefits and no formal consultation with unions is required. Telkom has,
however, sought to engage with labour on the outsourcing process.
The engagements include the outsourcing of the fixed line call centre
operations. This will result in the transfer of current Telkom call centre
employees to a new employer, through an automatic transfer under the Section
197 process.
Telkom spokesperson, Jacqui O’Sullivan, said the outsourcing was a critical
step in Telkom’s focus on the customer.
“To succeed, everyone at Telkom has to put the interests of the customer
at the heart of everything we do. Our customers are the core of our business,
but running call centres is not. We know that customers will benefit from
a focused and consistent service that a professional call centre organisation
can offer. For this reason, we are confident this is the correct action
to take,” she said.
When Telkom initially embarked on its turnaround strategy, the Company
stated that it would look at alternatives, such as joint ventures, to ensure
that job losses would only be implemented as the last resort.
To this end, Telkom has completed a stringent procurement process and
has identified WNS as its preferred partner to undertake Telkom’s fixed
line call centre operations. Similarly Barloworld Logistics has been identified
to undertake the management of 25 Telkom warehouses in the supply chain
area of the business.
It is proposed that the IT legacy systems will be managed by ASAJE. Bidvest
has been identified to take over internal printing services, and Ingram
Micro the supply chain in the retail area of the business.
Just under than 1 300 employees are affected by the Section 197 process,
all of whom have already been notified of the company’s intent to engage
with organised labour on this matter.
Telkom is committed to a fair, objective and transparent process involving
organised labour. Further engagement sessions are scheduled.
As of 30 September 2015, we had approximately 3.3 million telephone access
lines in service and 1,030,441 ports connected via MSAN access. We offer
business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and
products, including:
Convergence is one of our key strategic initiatives in building a sustainable
future for Telkom. We will lead the provision of converged services
in South Africa in support of our mission statement: Seamlessly connecting
people to a better life.