The already strained relations between South African telecommunications services provider Telkom and trade union Solidarity over the publicised planned job cuts seems to have worsened with the trade union being accused by Telkom of making "misleading and inflammatory racial statements".

In early June Telkom announced plans to shed 4 400 jobs through voluntary severance packages or voluntary early retirement packages, with an additional 3 400 employees set to be transferred to outsourced companies.

This was in line with the company's functional restructuring process as part of its Telkom 2.0 turnaround programme.

On Tuesday 23 June Telkom issued a statement saying that in its notice issued to the unions in terms of section 189 of the Labour Relations Act, the company proposed that "LIFO (Last in First Out) subject to the retention of scarce and critical skills and where applicable, employment equity considerations" be used as the selection criteria.

Telkom added in its statement that, "the inflammatory and misleading inference by Solidarity that race is the key selection criterion and that white employees will be targeted, is unequivocally rejected."

However, head of communications at Solidarity Marius Croucamp reiterated Solidarity's comments made recently in the media and said that Telkom "wants to use race as a criteria for retrenchment."

Croucamp added that Telkom's notice, along with LIFO and retention of skills, includes employment equity as one of the criteria and this, he said, was race.

"If they to try work around that, let's see, but it's in black and white....the question is why do they put that criteria in there? if that is not the case, why is it there in the first place? We got a court order against them in the previous process. .. if they want to defend themselves on that it is going to be very difficult because it has been put there blatantly."

Croucamp added that the trade unions have officially declared a formal dispute with Telkom, and said that " they (Telkom) are not following their own procedures. The so-called restructuring forum, in which restructuring is discussed and there is certain information that has to be shared. Legally they have not yet fully exhausted that process... they refuse to continue in the restructuring forum, they just want to move onto the actual process."

According to Croucamp Telkom has until tomorrow to deal with the dispute and if they do not follow that internal procedure, Solidarity will pursue legal action to force this.

Jacqui O' Sullivan, Telkom's Managing Executive for Group Communication, said it is regrettable that Solidarity has chosen to play the race card again, in the context of a process that needs to address critical challenges that the company is facing.

"Telkom would prefer to focus on the consultation that it has been initiated and will take place within the structured LRA process, rather than pursuing media headlines with misleading hyperbole,"

"As with any company, Telkom looks at a number of employment criteria in deciding to bring people into the company or to retain them during times of change. Most importantly, we are a technology company so our people must be equipped with the necessary skills to perform the required body-of-work. They would also be required to have the correct qualifications and training and importantly, the necessary aptitude and attitude to be a part of the Telkom of the future," O'Sullivan added.