Telecom services may be disrupted as workers threaten indefinite strike

Data and call services may face disruption from Monday next week as workers in the Private Telecommunications and Communications Senior Staff Association (PTECSSAN) have threatened an indefinite strike over the precarious working conditions of its members across various companies in the sector.
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PTECSSAN issued the threat after its meeting yesterday, lamenting that its field workers, comprising Field Maintenance Engineers (FMEs), Transmission Engineers (TEs), Customer Service Engineers (CSEs) fibre engineers, fibre optics engineers, and riggers, among others, have been subjected to precarious working conditions, noting that their fundamental right to belong to associations as enshrined in Nigeria’s labour laws and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) convention has been denied.
  
While pleading with Nigerians to bear with the union throughout the strike, the union’s General Secretary, Abdullahi Okonu, said the strike would begin at midnight on Monday, September 9, 2024.
  
He said that the strike action had become inevitable because of the prevalent precarious working conditions its members are enduring in the sector, the refusal of the employers to recognise and respect the constitutional right of workers to freely associate with the union and the unjust sack of three members.
  
Okonu threatened that the union would not suspend the planned indefinite strike action until its demands were met.
  
Among its demands, Okonu said, is the immediate reinstatement of the three unjustly sacked workers: Sotola Kolawole, Ulu Christopher, and Alex Franklin.
The union demanded the immediate recognition of the fundamental rights of the employees, immediate stoppage of 24-hour jobs and introduction of work hours by international best practices, immediate stoppage of work overload (combining passive tasks to theirs) and the immediate adherence to occupational health and safety in line with international best practices, among others.
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