Did Airtel sack 3000 customer care staff as reported??

According to what is widely reported Telecommunications company Airtel now run by Indians because the company has allegedly sacked over 3000 of their customer care staff for refusing to accept a massive reduction in their salaries.

The Airtel customer care staff were previously being paid 80,000 Naira a month and objected to the reduction of their salaries to 65,000 Naira a month (with no additional incentives).
According to sources Airtel outsourced their customer service to an Indian company which is not willing to compromise on the salary being offered to staff.
Airtel has previously been accused of subjecting staff to difficult working conditions especially since all the top executives were replaced with Indians.

however i saw a comment which i have decided to put forward here perhaps someone will clarify the true position. the last i heard was that NLC Nigeria Labour congress is planning to shut the company down over the allegation, i hope they carry out their findings properly.

"This story is totally incorrect, factually and otherwise.
Airtel, in the first place, doesn’t have as many staff in Nigeria. Secondly, Airtel did not sack a single member of staff. The purported staff, who are claiming that they were sacked, are Call Centre Agents, who are employees of two Agencies, who provide Agents for two partners, Tech Mahindra and Spanco-who provide Airtel Call Centre Services.
Contrary to the report here, which sadly was unchecked/unverified was that the Agents, about 1545 of them were out of contract by Friday, September 30 2011. Tech Mahindra and Spanco have indicated in a joint statement that they would like to hire agents directly on their roll, which will include new Agents and some of the old Agents, who meet their specifications.
So, Airtel did not sack any Agents as they were not Airtel’s employees and Airtel does NOT run Call Centres.
I have also attached the joint statement by Tech Mahindra and Spanco here:
JOINT MEDIA STATEMENT BY TECH MAHINDRA AND SPANCO ON SUSPENSION OF CALL CENTRES

Lagos, Nigeria; Monday, October 03, 2011: We, Tech Mahindra and Spanco, are global Business Process Outsourcing (BPOs) companies and providers of Call Centre services to Airtel Nigeria, operating out of two call centres in Lagos and Abuja, respectively.

Our attention has been drawn to several messages circulating in cyberspace alleging that our client, Airtel had fired 3,000 Call Centre agents due to a disagreement over a purported plan to reduce salaries. This is untrue and we want to use this medium to put the facts right.

Last year, following the signing of a landmark BPO Agreement with the Airtel Group, we jointly inherited over 1,600 Call Centre agents from Bezaleel, HR Indexx and CCSNL who hitherto provided agents for the company known then as Zain. The contract existing between us and two of the agencies namely CCSNL and HR Index expired effective Friday September 30, 2011. The third agency, Bezaleel’s, contract will expire in January 2012. So, there is no issue of mass sack but expiration of existing contracts.

Prior to the expiration of the contracts, we had engaged representatives of the Agents and that of the organized Labour on how to manage their transition to our roll. Due to a lack of consensus on the way forward and an apparent threat to our facilities by some of the agents, we were compelled to suspend operations at the call centres last Friday, September 30, 2011.

Going forward, our plan is to recruit new agents and also offer some of the affected agents a new contract with attendant salaries and benefits based on their qualifications and experience. Our vision is to expand the Call Centre business in Nigeria to 5000 capacity, ultimately.

On the issue of salaries, we state categorically that as world class organizations, we offer our employees remuneration and benefits comparable to standards across the world and in compliance with the working and labour laws of Nigeria.

We, therefore, appeal to all Nigerians, especially Airtel customers, to bear with us as we seek to expeditiously resolve the issues and re-open the call centres in the coming days. Indeed, we have also taken appropriate measures to ensure that our client’s customers experience minimal inconvenience during this brief period.

It is important to note that the activities of these disgruntled Agents are capable of frustrating investors with good intentions and make nonsense of the Federal Government’s drive for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

We are committed to growing the BPO industry in Nigeria and by so doing we will give meaning to the quest by the Federal Government of Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to create jobs as part of his master plan to re-engineer the Nigerian economy.

Signed:

K SANKARALINGAM
CEO – SPANCO, AFRICA
SPANCO CHANNEL BPO LIMITED

SUJIT BAKSI

could this be the true position, Who is to blame ?