Very early yesterday, a mobilization of employees of this telecommunications company, gathered in Sintraemsdes Pereira and supported by other organizations, closed the vehicular passage in race 10 with 16 to make themselves felt on the outskirts of the main headquarters in this city.
Juan Carlos Cardona, president of Sintraemsdes said: “The protest tasks will be consecutive in different cities and for several days, because Sintraemsdes presented a list of demands to Une-EPM Telecommunications on December 29, 2022, at 3:00 p.m. 40 in the afternoon that it was settled denouncing the existing Collective Agreement and initiating a new negotiation process to improve the conditions of the workers”.
The union leader affirms that the Company, aware of the deposit of the document, which guarantees protection to workers from not being dismissed, due to circumstantial jurisdiction, violated this guarantee and dismissed around 15 workers throughout the country, between the 29th and last December 30, including seven from Pereira.
“The Company began firing at 5:00 pm calling the workers to notify them of the letter. They argue that they have a discretionary power to do so, but they are unaware of a constitutional protection that is the circumstantial jurisdiction when the collective conflict begins, without caring that they were indefinite-term work contracts, ”explains Cardona.
The people who protest demand the reinstatement of the workers, as a guarantee to be able to start the negotiation of the list of demands, but they say that the directives of Tigo-Une have even refused to attend work and send personnel who do not have the capacity to take decisions, but those who make them do not face the Union or the Ministry of Labor, they stressed.
Finally, the union leader commented that “the most recent thing they did was present a voluntary retirement plan to the workers, offering them money to leave and what they are doing with that is ignoring collective bargaining and violating union freedom. What they want is for fewer workers to be involved in the conflict.”
Another matter that they want to make visible is the provision with quality of service, because according to them, there are more than 1,500 workers laid off in this company, with which they deliver these activities to contractors and third parties, which decreases the quality of the service, because there is no with whom to lend it
To find out the Company’s position, El Diario contacted Mrs. Ana María Rubio, Vice President of Labor Relations, by email and received a response from the Prensa Tigo email, with the following statement: “UNE EPM Telecommunications is allowed to inform : Taking into account the interest of its collaborators and the need to achieve greater efficiencies, the company has designed a Voluntary Retirement Plan aimed at a group of employees that is being implemented between January 18 and 25, 2023. The departures and the income of employees of the business group responds to the normal dynamics of an organization that generates around 4,000 jobs. Tigo remains committed to its purpose of connecting more and more Colombians, even more so in challenging situations such as those that the national economy and the sector in particular are going through”.
Today is the end of the work week, which does not prevent the parties from meeting or reaching an agreement, but it is most likely that there will be more material to cut on this issue next week.