MTN at union’s mercy

The headquarters of MTN in Johannesburg, South Africa. File picture: Mike Hutchings/Reuters

The headquarters of MTN in Johannesburg, South Africa. File picture: Mike Hutchings/Reuters

Published Aug 24, 2016

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Johannesburg - Telecoms giant MTN could face another full-blown strike as workers affiliated to the Communication Workers Union (CWU) warned Tuesday they would down tools if their demands were not met.

The union said talks with the company had stalled and the strike could be a possibility in the next couple of weeks.

CWU general secretary Aubrey Tshabalala said the union had met the company several times in the past two weeks but the talks had failed to yield any results.

Tshabalala said the talks collapsed due to the “lack of will” from management.

He accused the company of arrogance and warned that the hardening attitudes could leave MTN in trouble.

“The newly appointed human resources officer, Nhlanhla Qwabe, seems to be thinking arrogance is the way of dealing with issues,” Tshabalala said.”There is a management that is incapacitated to engage meaningfully on labour issues.”

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But Qwabe, who is the company’s chief human resources officer, said the talks had to be rescheduled at the request of the union to September 2.

Demands

“The meeting between MTN and the CWU did not take place following the request received this morning from the union to reschedule the meeting,” Qwabe said.

The union is demanding, among others, an end to the outsourcing of MTN’s call centres, as well as converting temporary staff into permanent workers after the company said it was planning to outsource some of its call centre facilities in order to optimise its operations and enhance customer experience.

MTN last year endured an eight-week strike after CWU members downed tools in a strike that negatively affected its services.

The strike eventually led to the abrupt resignation of then chief executive of local operations, Ahmad Farroukh.

In October, the company also had to deal with the Nigerian Communications Commission,which slapped it with a $5.2 billion fine after it failed to deregister 5.1million unregistered subscribers as required by the country’s rules, sending its share price plunging.

Vestact portfolio manager Bryon Lotter said the new strike was bad news for the company as it could affect its share price.

“The company has not kept its eyes on the ball because of the issues it faces in Nigeria. There is more pressure in terms of service delivery now,” Lotter said.

“MTN is not a mining company, so when workers go on strike, business runs normally. You will get a few dissatisfied customers. However, this does not go without saying, a possible strike could leave the company with unhappy workers, as well as customers if close to 1 500 workers embark on a strike.”

MTN shares rose 1.07 percent on the JSE yesterday to close at R126.34.

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