Telecom Workers Begin Strike, Threatening Service Disruptions in Nigeria

Nigeria's telecommunications industry faces potential disruptions as employees under the Private Telecommunications and Communications Senior Staff Association have commenced a strike.

The union, which represents over 800 workers across various telecom companies, including Huawei and IHS, announced the strike's commencement on Monday. According to a statement by Secretary-General Okonu Abdullahi, the union plans to severely impact the nation’s telecom networks.

The strike was declared due to alleged poor working conditions, the refusal of employers to recognize the union, and the reported unjust dismissal of three union members. The union is demanding the reinstatement of its members, recognition of the union, improved working conditions, and remittance of membership dues.

“The strike has become inevitable because of the prevalent precarious working conditions our members are enduring in the sector, the refusal of the employers to recognize and respect the constitutional right of these workers to freely associate with the union, and the unjust sack of three members of the union,” Abdullahi stated in a seven-day strike notice.

He added, “The implications of the strike will be massive because we have told all our members not to respond to any service outage from our employers. The fact remains that there are outages every day, and if our engineers do not respond to those outages, subscribers in those areas will be affected.”

In response, Gbenga Adebayo, Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), stated that the group is not recognized by ALTON. “This group is not known to us in ALTON, and the companies mentioned are not members of ALTON,” he said.