TELKOM will urgently have to tackle its labour relations problems to ensure that the Fifa World Cup goes off without a hitch, trade union Solidarity said yesterday.

With only 99 days left to kick-off, the tournament’s success was “on a knife’s edge” due to dissatisfaction among Telkom employees.

“Employees of all three trade unions in Telkom’s largest single unit, Data Advance Services (Das), are unhappy about salary discrepancies between them and employees of the company’s Merlot project, a unit responsible for the telecommunications company’s largest contracts,” Solidarity said.

The union said Das employees were not only demanding that they be remunerated at the same level as Merlot employees, but that the payment be implemented two years retrospectively.

Solidarity said the Merlot project was the largest contract in Telkom, worth several billion rands.

“South Africa’s largest companies, including (banks) Absa and Nedbank, are clients of this project.”

The trade union said employees of the project earned much better salaries than most employees in the Das unit.“ In addition, employees of the project also receive a monthly retention bonus of R3500.”

Solidarity spokesman Jaco Kleynhans said yesterday that an agreement had not yet been reached despite several meetings with Telkom management about the matter.

“Employees of all three trade unions in Telkom are now willing to take the matter further,” Kleynhans said.

At a meeting with Das employees in Johannesburg on Monday, management had proposed that the problem be “investigated”.

Employees maintained that management was delaying the process unnecessarily.

The Das unit in Telkom is responsible for, among other things, the maintenance of companies’ switchboards and data transmission lines.

“If Telkom does not take urgent steps to resolve the issue, service delivery to several large companies, as well as service delivery that is essential for the success of the soccer World Cup will be in jeopardy,” Kleynhans warned.

Telkom senior media spokesman Ajith Bridgraj said simply that its preparations for the World Cup remained “firmly on track”. – Sapa