The Ghana Chamber of Telecommunication has urged the Telecoms and IT Professionals Union to renege on their planned industrial action.
Contained in a press statement, the Chamber appealed to stakeholders involved to resort to negotiations to resolve their issues.
The strike action by the union is made up of Engineers and Technicians contracted by Huawei Technologies Limited. They are to manage and maintain the technical operations of MTN, AirtelTigo and Vodafone.
“While the Chamber acknowledges and respects the right of TIP to negotiate for favourable conditions of services, the body is appealing to the Union to continue to pursue their demands through negotiation and arbitration”.
The Chamber insists the industry is “equally working with all partners to ensure a speedy resolution” of the challenge. This, it explained, to minimize any disruptions in telecom services as this is important for the industry.
“The Chamber will like to assure customers of its commitment to the provision of reliable telecoms services to its customers”.
Telecoms and IT Professionals declare strike
The Telecom and IT Professionals Union declared a strike action to commence today, March 15, 2021. Their protest was in contention of poor conditions of service.
The union has stated that salary negotiations with the management of the four subcontractors has been unfruitful. Huawei Technologies Limited engaged subcontractors to maintain the technical operations of MTN, AirtelTigo, and Vodafone.
They have therefore resolved to boycott work until their concerns are addressed.
Israel Edem Agbegbor, the General Secretary of the Union, explained that the subcontractors’ management has refused to implement the pay structure after the NLC’S arbitration process.
“So clearly we have employers who do not have the workers at heart.
“When the union proposed 20 percent just to help you cushion these workers… management comes to tell us they do not have any offer for the workers, so they are offering zero percent”.
Edem Agbegbor
NLC scheduled to meet telco union on Thursday
Meanwhile, the National Labour Commission has disclosed that it will meet with the Telecom and IT Professional Union on Thursday, March 18, 2021.
According to the Executive Secretary of the NLC, Mr. Ofosu Asamoah, the Union should have returned to the Commission for enforcement of an earlier arbitration. He however chided the Telecom and IT Professionals Union for declaring the strike.
“If the Commission has given a directive, and it has not been followed by one party, it is only proper that the other [party] reports the defaulting party for the Commission to take steps including court action to get the party to comply rather than to declare a strike.
“The strike doesn’t come in when it comes to service providers especially in a case where the Commission has arbitrated on it and all that was needed was enforcement. So, it was for them to report to us and invoke our powers to enforce the directive”.
Ofosu Asamoah
