Our first meeting was successful- Telecom Workers

The General Secretary of the Telecom and IT professionals Union, , Israel Edem Agbebor, has disclosed that Huawei management has begun addressing itschallenges.

This follows the Union’s decision to strike over poor working conditions.

“Our first meeting was successful. Management has provided all the documents we requested. We have scheduled two more meetings within the week. [Also], we are law-abiding citizens. We only hope that management will fulfil their part of the bargain in order for us to meet the deadline.”

The union declared a strike action on March 15, 2021, in protest of poor conditions of service.

Additionally, the union explained that salary negotiations with the management of the four subcontractors had not yielded fruitful results. The subcontractors had been engaged by Huawei Technologies Limited to maintain the technical operations of MTN, AirtelTigo, and Vodafone

The union however then suspended its strike action ahead of a meeting with the NCL on Thursday, March 18, 2021.

Despite the union’s suspended strike, some of the employers, MP Infrastructure Limited, Linfra Ghana Limited and Reime Ghana Limited dragged the union to court.  They also secured an injunction to prevent them from resuming or embarking on another strike.

Telecom union bemoans reluctance of employers to resolve challenges

The General Secretary of the Union, Israel Edem Agbegbor, in an earlier interview, revealed that the subcontractors’ management refused to implement the pay structure. He made this revelation after the National Labour Commission’s arbitration process.

“So clearly we have employers who do not have the workers at heart. Salary negotiations which were supposed to be done by the end of September were dragged to this January.

“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”.

Israel Edem Agbegbor

NLC’s attempt to resolve impasse

The National Labour Commission on the other hand, proffered to resolve the stalemate between Telecom and IT Professionals Union and the employers.

They argued that their employers had failed to implement directives issued by the National Labour Commission in January 2021.

Executive Secretary of the National Labour Commission, Ofosu Asamoah, disclosed that the meeting was to address the concerns of both parties for an amicable solution.

“The workers were before the Commission on January 13. The Commission gave five directions which were in relation to the job evaluation that was going on. But properly, when the Commission has given you time within which you need to report or intake an activity and one party does it and the other fails, you come to the office for the appropriate tools to use tools to ensure adherence.

“But in this case, the union members did not come but declared the strike. It is upon this that we think that both parties appear before the Commission to see how this can be remedied.”

Ofosu Asamoah