The Congress of South African Trade Unions has called on the government to intervene at Telkom‚ which announced job cuts last week.

Telkom said last week that it would cut 300 jobs at its corporate office and outsource a further 254 jobs.

Cosatu said in a statement on Monday that it denounced the cuts and called on government to “put a stop to these unilateral retrenchments ‚that have been taking place at Telkom for the last ten years”.

In 2006‚ Telkom had 25575 employees‚ compared to 14212 employees now.

Cosatu accused the company of failing to consult stakeholders such as the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and negotiating in bad faith.

“We agree with CWU that this crude stunt by Telkom to is a sneaky attempt to subvert the wage negotiations process‚” Cosatu said.

“The cuts in real wages‚ retrenchments and widespread casual labour are sign that government needs to act.

“This action by Telkom makes a mockery of government’s commitment to create jobs and also improve the country’s telecommunications infrastructure. Telkom is not acting in line with the state’s developmental agenda but it is only focusing on generating profits at the expense of the workers.

“The President correctly and progressively committed government to end outsourcing in the ANC’s 2015 January 8th statement. Government has also repeatedly stated it will never retrench any worker and they must therefore support their words with action by decisively acting to stop this attack on workers.”