As telecommunications giant Telkom sets a date for the automatic transfer of some of its employees to new employers outsourced to the firm, “go-slows” and walk-outs have hit the JSE-listed firm’s operations.

Telkom intended to proceed with its Section 197 on March 31, after an agreement could not be reached on additional options for the 1 300 affected employees, Telkom spokesperson Jacqui O’Sullivan said on Monday.

Discussions with the South African Communication Union (Sacu), Solidarity and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) over Telkom’s intention to transfer its call centre, supply chain and information technology (IT) employees to the firms it outsourced the activities to had been under way for the past five weeks.

In February, Telkom embarked on the process to reassign employees to several identified external companies tasked by Telkom to take over the call centre operations and the management of the IT legacy systems, Telkom’s supply chain warehouses and internal printing activities.

Earlier in March, Telkom identified WNS as the company that would take over its fixed-line call centre operations, while Barloworld Logistics would be tasked with the management of 25 supply chain warehouses.

Bidvest had been selected to take over internal printing services and Ingram Micro the retail supply chain, while the IT legacy systems would likely be managed by ASAJE.

Telkom had agreed to Sacu and Solidarity’s requests to make voluntary severance and voluntary early retirement packages available and to defer the transfer date to April 30.

While Solidarity and Sacu submitted their written acceptance of the offer, the CWU withheld the majority consent, which meant majority consensus on the deal could not be reached.

While Telkom was required to ensure that staff transferred with the same or better packages and benefits, no formal consultation with unions was actually required.

The company, however, continued its Section 189 consultations, facilitated by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, for the closure of 20 nonviable Telkom Direct stores.

While Telkom’s service levels had been under severe pressure in the past few weeks, workers at the company’s already outsourced call centres escalated the so-called "go-slows”, with incidents of staff intimidation and walk-outs, over the weekend.

“We have brought additional staff into our already outsourced call centres and have increased our resourcing of the noncall-centre customer options,” said O’Sullivan.