MTN
By Constance Imasuen
Abuja, July 9, 2018 (NAN) Mr Dele Kolade, the Deputy President, National Union of Postal and Telecommunications Employee (NUPTE) on Monday said the union would continue to picket MTN until its demands are met.
Kolade reacting to the nationwide picketing of MTN told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that the union was picketing the organisation because of its practices that were inconsistent with Nigerian labour laws and International Labour Organisation.
He decried that MTN do not allow its workers the freedom to unionise or freedom of association, which Nigerian constitution enshrined that workers should have the right to associate and belong to a union.
“MTN have been engaged in giving workers contract appointment as almost all its workers are on three to six months contract appointments and they are not permitted to participate in union activities
“The company has been doing all manners of things and no incentives; it doesn’t pay the social security just because it doesn’t want to pay social protection such as pension and other things.
“This kind of thing do not happen in South Africa where they are coming from and Nigerians are fed up,’’ he said.
Kolade said that over the years, MTN had been treating Nigerian workers with levity without regard for their rights and privileges hence the protest.
“We have met with the management severally and it has promised to change.
“That is why today after several entreaties, we have decide to picket them.
“The picketing is all over the country and as I am talking to you now, our members are in Lagos, we have made up our mind that we continue to picket them until they their change attitude.
“We are doing the picketing in Abuja, Lagos, Port-Harcourt and Kano all over the country.
“We are not going to stop until they change their attitude, until they stop the idea of casualisation and give our people the right as employees and keep them as full workers and not as contract workers,’’ Kolade said. (NAN)
COA/GY
Edited by Grace Yussuf