Nigeria’s telecom sector dangers shutdown as about 800 employees from the Non-public Telecommunications and Communications Senior Employees Affiliation have launched into strike, threatening to cripple providers nationwide.
The union, largely contract workers, warned of huge disruptions to telecom operations if its calls for weren’t met, as this would go away thousands and thousands of subscribers to face a possible communication blackout.
The strike started on Monday and the union’s calls for embrace, amongst different issues, reinstatement of a few of its sacked employees, recognition of the union, improved working situations, and remittance of membership dues.
“The strike has turn out to be inevitable due to the prevalent precarious working situations our members are enduring within the sector, the refusal of the employers to recognise and respect the constitutional proper of those employees to freely affiliate with the union, and the unjust sack of three members of the union,” it acknowledged in its seven-day strike discover.
Talking with The PUNCH, the union’s Secretary-Normal, Okonu Abdullahi, mentioned the affiliation’s 800 employees play a big position in managing important infrastructure like base stations for infrastructure firms reminiscent of IHS, Huawei, and many others.
“The implications of the strike shall be huge as a result of we’ve informed all our members not to reply to any service outage from our employers. The very fact stays that there are outages day-after-day, and if our engineers don’t reply to these outages, subscribers in these areas shall be affected,” he mentioned.
He mentioned members of the union embrace area upkeep engineers, transmission engineers, customer support engineers, fibre engineers, and different important workers working for telecom service firms.
The culpable firms embrace amongst others, Huawei Applied sciences Nigeria Restricted, Tylium Nigeria Restricted, Particular Instruments & Strategies, CPNL (Chinese language Pacific Networks Restricted) and CITCC (China Worldwide Telecommunications Development Company), JUSPARTNER.
The PUNCH understands that telcos like MTN, Globacom, Airtel, 9mobile personal base stations and fibre infrastructure however typically outsource administration to servicing firms.
These firms, in flip, typically subcontract the work to smaller contractors, who make use of the hanging employees. This advanced internet of outsourcing has led to issues about employee welfare and job safety.
The telecom union had in April launched into an analogous strike over an analogous state of affairs, which was resolved by a reconciliatory assembly convened by the Ministry of Labour between the union and the telecom servicing firms.
In response to the PTECSSAN secretary, “The labour ministry had intervened in our earlier industrial motion, however sadly, the businesses are nonetheless repeating the identical points, which have now escalated as a result of we’ve extra members collaborating on this strike.”
When requested if the Federal Authorities or the businesses have engaged with the union on the present industrial motion, he mentioned, “We’ve given them ample alternative to handle our calls for, however they’ve chosen to disregard us. In the event that they proceed to neglect our grievances, we can have no selection however to take extra drastic measures.”
Talking with The PUNCH, the officer answerable for the telecoms sector on the Ministry of Labour, Princess Powei, acknowledged the employees’ issues and warranted that the federal government is dedicated to resolving the problems promptly.
Powei, who was a part of the crew that resolved the earlier strike by the employees in April, acknowledged, “One factor I can guarantee you is that the strike is not going to linger. I’ll begin making calls now to see what we will do to make sure that the grievances are addressed.”
In a telephone dialog with our correspondent, a prime Huawei official from China, recognized solely as Bruce, denied that any of his crew members have been collaborating within the ongoing strike by the PTECSSAN.
Bruce acknowledged that every one workers have been working within the workplace and had not obtained any notification in regards to the strike.
“So far as I do know, everyone seems to be working, and I don’t assume anybody is concerned on this,” Bruce mentioned. “Nonetheless, I’ll confirm the state of affairs with my crew.”
When questioned about area employees, the Huawei consultant acknowledged that they could be impacted by the strike, however clarified that they weren’t instantly employed by Huawei. As a substitute, they have been a part of subcontracting groups.
In April, when the union launched into an analogous strike, The PUNCH reached out to Gbenga Adebayo, Chairman of the Affiliation of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria, for feedback. He acknowledged that the union was unknown to cellular operators, saying:
“This group shouldn’t be identified to us in ALTON, and the businesses talked about should not members of ALTON. ALTON subscribes to freedom of affiliation, and we’re open to dialogue for the larger good,” he mentioned in a chat.
The union was requested if it had any recognition or affiliation with the telcos; Abdullahi responded, “We’ve tried to contact ALTON, however they’ve by no means made themselves obtainable to debate points with us.
“We wrote to them in 2020 and 2021, despatched reminders, and even adopted up with calls, however they all the time had excuses, reminiscent of their chairman being in another country. We’re questioning why they’re ignoring us, particularly since they’re conscious of our existence,” he mentioned.
The President of the Affiliation of Telecommunications Corporations of Nigeria, Tony Emoekpere, informed The PUNCH that he was not conscious of the matter concerning the potential strike by telecom employees, because the union shouldn’t be affiliated with the affiliation.
Nonetheless, Emoekpere emphasised the important significance of defending the telecom sector, saying, “Telecom providers have turn out to be a important infrastructure that should be safeguarded in any respect prices.”
He additional pressured that the telecom business is an important asset to the nation, including, “Something that jeopardizes its performance should be protected. We can not afford to compromise the steadiness of this important sector.”
