"It's true, we are being prevented from entering the company because the employer wants to take revenge on the strikers by putting everyone out on the street, there are more than 200 workers who are in this situation", the secretary general of the Union of workers told Lusa. Postal, Telecommunications and related workers in Luanda, Lourenço Afonso.
According to the union leader, the administration of Angola Telecom opted, since the beginning of October, for a selective return of the striking workers, with nearly 10 workers having been notified to sign dismissal documents.
Lourenço Afonso says that, after the strike, which took place between June 21 and September 30, 2022, the employer "divided" the strikers into four groups.
The first group, he explained, "is the workers who were not notified to return because the condition imposed on them is to start signing the time book for a week until they are called to resume their work".
A second group of workers "was called to resume work", but even so, he stressed, "they are not given any task to perform, they just spend the day at the company and then return home".
The union official also spoke of a group of striking workers transferred to other areas, an act that, in his opinion, "damages" the Strike Law.
"And then we have the fourth group, which is the workers who are being notified to sign dismissal guides and at this point we already have 10 workers notified for this purpose. We are talking about working with the company for more than seven years, all because they joined to the strike", he pointed out.
After almost 100 days of stoppage, Angola Telecom employees decided to suspend the strike, after guaranteeing by the employer to raise, in a first phase, 10 percent of the salary against the 50 percent that appeared in the claim book.
"And then other phases of implementation would come, that is, and also for the strikers was the need to suspend the strike to return to work, so it happened, but to our surprise the company refuses to receive the workers", concluded the unionist.
A source told Lusa that workers' representatives and the management of Angola Telecom are meeting this Friday at the General Labor Inspectorate, in Luanda, to address the matter.
Lusa sought to contact the management of the state-owned telecommunications company, but so far has not received any response.
