Customer service consultants at Africa\u2019s biggest mobile network MTN briefly took their grievances about bonus pay to the streets on Wednesday in what has been called an unprotected strike.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”cvhNtRL4Qj2jYjqkc4UnU9pfxNg3oejk”]Reports indicate that about 250 MTN customer service consultants protested outside the company\u2019s Johannesburg headquarters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The staff were expressing their unhappiness over a bonus of 4% of their annual salaries. This figure is said to be lower than previous bonuses of 30% of their annual salaries.<\/p>\n
The staff in turn rather want a thirteenth cheque or an ex gratia amount above 4%.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was definitely an unprotected strike; there was no notice,\u201d MTN\u2019s Chief Human Resources Officer Themba Nyati told Fin24.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe numbers (of staff involved in the protest) have not been confirmed because staff asked to be addressed by management over bonuses,\u201d Nyati said.<\/p>\n
The work stoppage, though, only lasted a few minutes with management addressing the staff\u2019s issues, according to Nyati.
\nNyati further told Fin24 that \u201cMTN is looking at resolving all issues raised to correct any misconceptions and misunderstandings\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFeedback will be given to staff,\u201d said Nyati.<\/p>\n
Nyati also told Fin24 that MTN has no recognised unions.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, some unions were around to address their members about the consequences of unprotected illegal work stoppages,\u201d said Nyati.<\/p>\n
Cutting costs<\/p>\n
MTN – which has 26 million subscribers in South Africa and over 200 million users across its entire Africa and Mideast operations – is in the process of cutting costs.<\/p>\n
The company is undergoing retrenchments as competition and falling voice revenues have hit it hard, especially in its South African market.<\/p>\n
MTN is said to have 7 000 employees in South Africa. Last year, reports emerged that the operator issued retrenchment notices to over 800 staff.<\/p>\n
Source: Fin24<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Customer service consultants at Africa\u2019s biggest mobile network MTN briefly took their grievances about bonus pay to the streets on Wednesday in what has been called an unprotected strike. [contextly_sidebar id=”cvhNtRL4Qj2jYjqkc4UnU9pfxNg3oejk”]Reports indicate that about 250 MTN customer service consultants protested outside the company\u2019s Johannesburg headquarters on Wednesday. The staff were expressing their unhappiness over a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":4713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[20,4],"class_list":["post-98753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-mental-health-authority","tag-st-augustines-college"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}