Nigeria’s telecommunications sector faces a potential shutdown as about 800 workers from the Private Telecommunications and Communications Senior Staff Association have commenced an industrial strike, threatening to disrupt services nationwide.
The union, composed largely of contract staff, warned of significant operational disruptions if its demands remain unmet, potentially leaving millions of subscribers in a communication blackout.
The strike, which began on Monday, is fueled by demands that include the reinstatement of dismissed workers, formal recognition of the union, improved working conditions, and the remittance of union dues. The union had issued a seven-day strike notice, citing the deteriorating working conditions and the refusal of employers to acknowledge workers’ rights to unionize.
In a statement, the union’s Secretary-General, Okonu Abdullahi, emphasized the essential role the striking workers play in managing critical infrastructure such as base stations for major telecom companies, including IHS and Huawei. He reiterated the strike’s inevitability, stating, “The strike has become inevitable because of the prevalent precarious working conditions our members are enduring in the sector.”
The strike threatens to cripple the telecom sector, which is crucial for the country’s communication and economic activities, if no resolution is reached soon.
“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,” he said.
He said members of the union include field maintenance engineers, transmission engineers, customer service engineers, fibre engineers, and other critical staff working for telecom service companies.
The culpable companies include among others, Huawei Technologies Nigeria Limited, Tylium Nigeria Limited, Specific Tools & Techniques, Concept Point Nigeria Limited (CPNL), Tremblem Nigeria Limited (TNL) Specific Tools & Techniques (ST&T) JUSPARTNER.
