According to Adebile, text messages were sent to staff through their mobile phones informing them of their sack.
Adebile said the method adopted by the firm in retrenching staff was against labour laws in the country as they were lawfully employed through the issuance of employment letters.
He therefore urged the staff to ignore the message and join in the protest to restore sanity to the company.
Adebile alleged that prior to the mass retrenchment, Airtel had proposed some unacceptable work conditions and benefits to the staff. “They have been threatening to remove all the benefits enjoyed by staff. They have phased out the monthly airtime package, medical allowance, study leave and annual leave reduced to 6 days”, Adebile said.
He lamented the frustration of staff of Airtel in Nigeria who he alleged had been subjected to inhuman conditions in spite of their hard work and contributions to the growth of the company. He said, “They proposed 60 per cent cut from salaries of workers. It is far less than what they are paying to the Tanzanians who contribute less than 10 per cent to the net profit of the company annually as against the 50 per cent profit they generate from their Nigerian subsidiary”.
He promised that the union would fight the company to a standstill until a positive compromise was reached. “How can you reduce the salaries of staff from N76,000 to N29,000 ? Etisalat pays more than N100,000 monthly with N36,000 worth of airtime. Same for Globacom and MTN”, Adebile said.
All efforts to gain access to the Abuja office of Airtel proved abortive as the police and security officers at the gate demed our reporter access. Also, attempts to speak to officials of the organization failed as they neither picked calls nor responded to text messages.
One of the messages sent to them read, “Please confirm report that Airtel today sacked 80 percent of its workforce.”
Another protest has been slated for Tuesday 4th of October, 2011 at Airtel Abuja office beside Force Headquarters in Abuja to further press home their demands.
This is modern slavery to me.If you ask me, i will say this has Nigerian mentality writen all over it. No garlic eaten Indian from a third world country can come to Nigeria and tell us what to do except they have the backing and support of Nigerian executives in airtel. Thirty thousand naira is equivalent to $200 a month for a graduate!
This is just a case of the rich getting richer while the poor keeps getting poorer. Lets stop fooling ourselves in this country.
