2. PICKET SUSPENDED BY LABOUR COURTS, CONSUMER ACTION CONTINUES
3. VODACOM IS DESPERATE FOR A LESSON IN MATHEMATICS
4. THREATS AGAINST AUBREY TSHABALALA CONTINUE
5. SACP AND YCL SUPPORT VODACOM WORKERS
1. PICKET ACTIONS SUCCESFUL! VODACOM WORKERS MAKE HISTORY!
Click on the pictures for larger versions. More pictures will be posted soon!
Hundreds of Comrades affirmed their dignity ttoday by picketing Vodacom. Pickets occurred peacefully and without untoward incidents in Vodaworld (Midrand), Pier Place & Technocentre (Cape Town), and Vodacom Acres (Port Elizabeth). Nationwide, more than 600 workers participated at different times and dozens of workers filled membership applications.
Today, March 12, 2007, marks the first occasion in the history of Africa that employees of a mobile phone company have engaged in industrial action. For a long time, these companies have been able to project themselves to the world as good employers. We have been told that we should be quietly grateful to work for them.
Today, we have shattered the illusion that mobile workers are docile and will accept anything the employer gives them. We are leading communication workers of the world in showing that we will not bow our heads, that we are not dazzled by employers like Vodacom, that we insist on having human rights, justice and dignity.
This is only the beginning.
2. PICKET TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED BY LABOUR COURTS
Today, Vodacom has obtained an interim (temporary) interdict against the CWU strike. All industrial action - that is, refusal to work or retardation or obstruction of work, has been SUSPENDED until further notice. The case will be heard again on March 19, at 10:00 am where a final ruling will be made.
Vodacom has hired a firm that boasts 250 attorneys in order to counter the strike. All they had to show for the considerable efforts that they have invested in stopping workers was a temporary suspension after the strike had started. They have embarrassed themselves in the process, exposing once again the fear that they have of their workers and their fundamental weakness: that they are in the wrong, and that we are more powerful than all their resources when we are united. Does it not make more sense to just sit down and talk?
Can the company claim this as a victory? No. We can. We are the ones who made history today. Another first for Vodacom!
Our friends, family and supporters of justice in general will continue to switch off their Vodacom telephones between 13h00 and 13h10 tommorrow.
3. VODACOM IS DESPERATE FOR A LESSON IN MATHEMATICS
Vodacom continues to claim in the media that CWU only has 10% membership in the company. Their wishful thinking, in light of the facts, can only mean one of two things:
a) Vodacom believes that its' workers and the South African people have lost their minds.
b) Vodacom wants its' workers and the South African people to believe that they have lost their minds.
Let us ask a few questions here.
1. If CWU only represents 10% of the workers, what could Vodacom fear from industrial action? Why did they hire expensive lawyers to counter it?
2. How did Vodacom get to claim that they have more than 4,000 employees when only weeks ago they claimed to have 3,000? Where are all those new hires? Are they hiring invisible people now?
3. Why did Vodacom submit as sworn evidence in the labour court, a list with only 392 people they consider members? And how then, was the union able to submit a list of more than twice that amount?
4. Could it be that the company chiefs cannot count? They seemed to have forgotten several members from whom they have been deducting dues for CWU in several paychecks. Yet when the company was doing its' maths, these workers are nowhere on their lists.
A small mistake? 900 small mistakes? Apparenty, the company not only needs us to do our normal work. Now, they even need us to do their maths for them!
4. THREATS AGAINST AUBREY TSHABALALA CONTINUE
This morning, Aubrey Tshabalala received yet another threatening call from a private number. The caller asked Comrade Aubrey "Who the hell do you think you are?" We cannot believe that this is a coincidence, and we see these attacks as showing how low some people are willing to lower themselves to deny workers' rights.
5. SACP AND YCL SUPPORT VODACOM WORKERS
Both the South African Communist Party and the Young Communist League have issued statements in support of Vodacom workers.
Read the SACP's statement here
Read the YCL's statement here
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