UTL mgmt-worker dispute far from over

KATHMANDU, JAN 11 -

The ongoing dispute between the management and employees at the United Telecom Limited (UTL) is far from over, with both the sides adamant on their stands, as service users continue to suffer.

UTL services have been halted in several places of the country for the last three days following a breakage in the optical fibre network. Both the sides claim the service disruption is due to a “minor technical glitch” and could be fixed within a few hours, but they are not working to solve the problem.

The management has accused the employees of delaying the repair work “intentionally”, while employees have termed the service disruption as “conspiracy” of the management.

The employees have been staging protests putting forward various demands, including a pay hike. A meeting held on Saturday between the two sides ended fruitless.

According to a senior UTL engineer, a optical fibre cable breakage has been identified in Bijulibajaar, Kathmandu , and said there could be a few more breakages in other places. He said UTL operates its services from two optical fibre routes. While the first route has been down for the past few months, the breakage in the second route has brought the services to an abrupt halt.

Besides the Kathmandu valley, voice, data and international call services in most of the places in the Eastern and Western regions have been halted. The company has 98 Base Transceiver Station (BTS) towers, of which 58 are in the Kathmandu valley.

As the customers continue to face problems, the management and the employees are involved in a blame game. “We asked the employees to sort out the issues and come up with a solution at the earliest,” a senior official from the UTL management told the Post. “In response, they said the management should negotiate with the parent federation.”

Before the service came to a halt, the UTL chapter of the All Nepal Workers Union for Organisations and Financial Institutions had started an agitation putting forward a 14-point demand. But the employees were forced to stop their agitation after the management acquired an interim stay order from the Appellate court, which barred the activities of the employees. Telephone service has been recognised as an “essential service” by the Essential Services Operation Act, 1957.

The employees on the other hand have a different story to share. “We are positive on the request of the management,” said Shankar Hari Prashain, vice president of the UTL chapter of the All Nepal Workers Union for Organisations and Financial Institutions. He said they requested the management to first withdraw an application filed at the Department of Labour to lay off 60 percent of the employees and writ on a few other employees.

The demands of the workers include a pay hike by Rs 15,000 per month, issuance of appointment letters to the workers and to those who have worked for more than 240 days as per the Labour Act, and modification and redefine of the existing human resources manual based on the Labour Act.

“We have agreed to most of the workers’ demands. But since the company is in financial loss for the past three years, we had asked them for some more time over the issue of salary hike,” the official with the UTL management said, adding the company, despite facing losses, is giving around 35 percent allowance to the employees.

Prashain, however, said the company has asked most of the employees to leave their jobs by accepting a pay cheque of Rs 100,000. “As per our information, the company has pledged increasing investment with the Department of Industry (DoI) and is likely to acquire a unified license,” Prashain said. “amid this scenario, the company’s move to lay off staff seems fishy.”

As per the latest data of the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), UTL has a user base of 500,008. There are 56,000 UTL internet service users across the country. In terms of the market share, UTL is the fourth largest telecommunication service provider of the country. The regulator on Friday had directed the company to resume the service at the earliest.

Source: The Kathmandu Post