Fiji Telecom strike

Date: 11 July 2000

A senior manager at Fiji Telecom was today removed from his position following a walk-out by indigenous Fijian workers who are members of the Telecom Employees Association.

The general-secretary of the Fiji TUC, Felix Anthony, tonight alleged that the walk-out had been orchestrated from the George Speight HQ in the Parliamentary Complex.

" The former president of the Telecom Employees Association - Timoci Silatolu - is a key backer of George Speight. He has been inside the Parliamentary Complex since Mahendra Chaudhry was taken hostage.

"The TUC is very concerned about what has happened today and will seek to meet with the Telecom Employees Association, who are an affiliated union, to discuss these events," Mr Anthony said.

Timoci Silatolu was voted out of his union position, as president, last year, by the union's members but he has been causing trouble in the union ever since.The union has been split for a while between supporters and opponents of Silatolu, according to Felix Anthony.

Mr Anthony said Timoci Silatolu is still an employee of Fiji Telecom and the places where the walkout happened are his key support bases - with the claims of racism by a Fijian-Indian manager a long standing campaign issue by the Silatolu group.

According to ABC radio hundreds of Telecom employees walked off the job in the capital, Suva, and the town of Lebasa on the island of Vanua Levu.

They have accused senior managers of racial discrimination by appointing only Indo-Fijian workers and say indigenous employees do not have the same career prospects as ethnic Indians.

ABC radio said they wanted seven managers to resign and the removal of another 14 staff.

Fiji Telecom general manager network engineering, Pratap Singh has been assigned to special duties after Telecom top management gave in to the strikers, according to Fijilive this evening.

Workers, who went on strike claiming racism from Singh, are expected to be back at work tomorrow.

The strike comes on top of continuing disruptions to power and other services.

So far, their actions have had no impact on telecommunications services, but vast areas of Fiji still face intermittent power cuts, civilian road blocks and other disruptions to normal life as the country's political crisis continues.

Meanwhile the UN's International Labour Organisation has sent Mr Ian Chambers, a top level official, to Fiji, as the representative of the Director General of ILO,.

Mr Chambers is expected to register with the Fiji military government the ILO's concerns about a number of violations of ILO conventions in regards to worker rights - especially the arrest and short-term detention of Felix Anthony a few weeks back.

For further information

Contact:	Andrew Casey
Union:	Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union
Phone:	9281 9511
Fax:	92821 4480
Email:	Andrewc@lhmu.org.au
WWW:	http://www.lhmu.org.au

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