“Airtel treat us like slaves” – Nigerian Staffers | Welcome to Linda Ikeji's Blog

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Saturday 11 June 2011

“Airtel treat us like slaves” – Nigerian Staffers

Staff protesting
Protests marred operations of telecommunications firm, Airtel, Abuja call centre as staffers known as call agents accused the Indian coy managing the call centre of treating them like slaves.

The agents whose protests disrupted the free flow of traffic around the vicinity said they were further irked when they were paid half salaries for May, despite working diligently to meet up with work average of answering over 160 customer care per shift of about 6 hours.


The protesters said the Indian managers seemed not to be fulfilled as they recently announced plans to increase work time for the agents from 6 to 10 hours, with no corresponding increase in their remuneration.

“These Indians have no human feeling at all. They give us poor salaries, and as if unsatisfied, they want to extend our working hrs from 6hrs to 10hrs.
Operating systems and applications are outdated and frustrating. They have reduced off days from 2 days to 1day, they don’t want us to have workers union, and they gave us no identity cards, no staff lines, no medicals or other
benefits.

“We are just being maltreated in silence. We cannot take this any longer because they won’t allow foreigners do this to them in their country. We beg the government and relevant agencies to come to our aid for proper regulation.” -an angry call agent said.

Reports say the Indian coy, Spanco, is said to be at loggerheads with recruiting agencies, Hrindexx, CCSNLand Bezaleel over who controls recruitment and is on the verge of terminating contracts before expiration, after exploiting call agents to make stupendous profits in the telecoms sector.


18 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know this pple wont own this company for long, if they think they can come to Nigeria and treat us like S***, they must be joking.i know dat after my experience with this pple, its no mercy to any Indian i come across when im back in 9ja. Just waiting for my time to pass here...

Anonymous said...

Nah so these Idiotic Indians dey do oh!!!! very wicked, they should be kicked out of the country jo!! Idi Amin nah im know how to treat their f**k up. They tried it in Ghana e no work cos the Ghanaian authorities no gree now them wan come dey do am for here...God go punish dem!!

Anonymous said...

They are the most useless people you can come across we see how they behave to us (black pepole) here in the uk and they are now carrying thier foolishness to 9ja i beg make we open our eyes ooo they really treat us like slaves.

I hear that they are now occupying a lot of senior positions in 9ja companies this is really getting scary as they would take over the country soon let us act now otherwise....

Anonymous said...

Indians are greedy bastard, that is how they treat anyone that is non indian.....very nasty people.

Anonymous said...

i once worked at the call center when it was under vmobile then celtel. we had to answer 120 calls within 6 hours shift and it was so horrific and stressful because some customers can keep you in a conversation for 20mins and you cant be rude nor hang up because the Quality assurance dept. were listening in on your calls, we had good medicals and two days as off-shift days. It is wicked and inhuman for anyone to increase number of calls to 160 in a 6 hour shift....Indians are like that, very dominanting and so inhuman, they want to take over anywhere they go,the poverty they have suffered and still experiencing in their country has given them the ''Get all you can,can all you get and sit upon it'' attitude. Nigeria needs to enforce her labour laws, not only in this telecom company but even in the banks, its UNHEALTHY for anyone to work more than 8 hours a day everyday of the year....little wonder the nation is losing her youths at their prime to diseases and deaths.

SirTalk said...

I feel a little reluctant to speak on racial related issues, because it's sensitive. But Some Indians/Pakistani are hostile to Africans, Have witness it on several occasion in the U.K especially at banks and post offices. An Indian own Nigeria KFC pays staff based on sales. If sales don't meet a target they don't get full salary but if sales meet/exceed target they get full salary...What type of salary plan is that. I was appalled when my brother told me how he gets paid. You know why this happens? It's because the government don't care about us, and the Indians are aware of this and taking advantage of it. Really you can't blame them.

Anonymous said...

Honestly Airtel as a company is inhuman,why should a big company like this owe workers, after their big shot have all collected their salaries, This workers been owed collect lesser than 100k as salaries,indians have always been known for their bribery and corruption mixed with labour slavery....come to think of it do we really have any active labour law in 9ja guiding foreigners on how to treat our citizens,if not pls the government should look into it.

Anonymous said...

It's really sad, i could remember those days when my cousin used to work there(then V-mobile). I envied him because of the level and kind of life he was living and always wished to work there someday, but with the recent development such thought would never come to my mind, reverse is the case now. These agents are burning out with little or no welfare plan,their take home package is nothing to write about. Salaries have remained same for over 2years.

They should be allowed to have their union and it's high time government intervened else when one is pushed to the wall we all know what follows "fight back" "a stitch in time saves nine"

Anonymous said...

india are useless people corruption is eaten them up here in india they are racist type of people and nigeria goverment should drive dem away from nigeria they are not good poeple to work with

keke said...

SEE ME SEE TROUBLE WITH INDIANS OH!!..MY PPL THEY CANNOT EVEN BE RACIST TO US BCOS THEY ARE NOT UP TO OUR SHOES...THE DIRTIEST AND SMELLIEST PPL IN THE WORLD..HAVE U BEEN TO INDIA???...STINKING DIRTY FILTHY HORRIBLE PLACE...WITH THEIR OUTRAGEOUS BODY ODOUR,,,THEY ARE JUST DESPERATE GREEDY CORRUPT PPL WHO WANT TO SWINDLE ANYONE AT THEIR DISPOSAL..

HERE IN AMERICA INDIANS BOW FOR NIGERIANS BCOS THEY KNOW WE KNOW WHAT THEY KNOW..WE DO BETTER THAN THEM IN SCHOOL..THEY CAN ONLY ACT STUPID IN ENGLAND BCOS THERE ARE SO MANY OF THEM SINCE THEY CAME EN MASSE IN THE 60'S AND THEY ARE JEALOUS OF US NIGERIANS PARTICULARLY BCOS THEY KNOW WE ARE GREAT COMPETITION...USELESS PPL..THEY COME TO AFRICA TO MAKE MONEY THEY WILL NEVER MAKE IN DIRTY INDIA..I AM SO GLAD THE STAFFERS WALKED OUT ON THEM ENOUGH ALREADY!!!

Anonymous said...

I really feel pained in my heart because we have a
Government that does not care about it's citizens. Nigerians have to stand up for their rights. We generally treat foreigners well, but when we get out of Nigeria, u are not regarded as part of them. We should even realize that there are some nigerians who run their companies worse than Indians. This is not the issue here. We need to love ourselves in Nigeria so we are united against foreigners who are only here to plunder our resources. Remember the Chinese are also here and treat nigerians as slave too. Another story.

Anonymous said...

The Nigeria of today is obviously not the Nigreria I lived in from the mid 80's to the mid 90's. What is it with Chinese, lebanese, and Indians infiltrating our country? I hope we don't wake up one morning and find ourselves living the way blacks lived in apartheid south africa. This is how it starts...giving foreigners the upper hand. Tomorrow now, they will start imposing curfews on us and telling us where we can and cannot live. The whites did that to us back then and slavery and colonialism followed suit. I guess we did not learn from our mistakes then. Can we go to their countries and get away with what they are doing to us?

Nigeria be wise oh....if not, then break up the country and let each ethnic group decide if they want to be treated like slaves and sell their land and birth right to foreigners or not. This is such a shame...we abroad get treated like shit and as if that is not enough, we have foreigners come to our country and treat us like shit again in our own land. Is something seriously wrong with we Nigerians? Are we under some kind of really bad spell? You never see Ghanians allow this rubbish but Naijas are all mouth and no action. Even our leaders are useless! Hissssssssssssssssss.

Anonymous said...

Get those dirty pakis out of africa. U can never try anything in their own country so why should they come here milking it. Our government should stick up for us. Nonsense. That's how those pakis behave towards blacks everywhere meanwhile they are all vermins.

Anonymous said...

The comments here are really racist, ignorant and come from very lazy people. If you dont like the job leave it,period! I work in the UK and know what people go through. Oftentimes while the blacks (especially Nigerians)are groaning of tiredness, the whites, and asians are still very upbeat and eager to do more. We Nigerians are VERY LAZY, no wonder our society is the way it is. We are always looking for ways to cut corners, and when we dont find those ways, we complain. Even if it were a Nigerian boss doing it to us, we would still complain.
What is happening in Nigeria is not new, it is done in UK, US, India, China, etc and that is why their societies are better. I hope this trend of hardwork continues so that the era of watching tv,/browsing websites/gisting with colleagues/sleeping, at work while customers are waiting becomes a thing of the past.

Anonymous said...

@anon 12.32, you are right in some aspects tho this is not a matter of hardwork.if you know what it entails to be a customer care operator then maybe you wouldn't talk too much...i dont work there but i know someone who does and who is very good at her job...before you compare, look at the economies first...it is inhumane to work 10 hours in the first place and guess what?just picking calls and being in one place...we all know what having a sedentary job can do talkless of doing it for ten hours...besides ear problems and possibly brain or head traumas...(God forbid)..the job may not be professional in that there is no association or body that regulates it but they are required to handle customers professionally...imagine talking to an uneducated person who you will have to explain even the tiniest details to and yet still expected to have an average talk time of about 2 mins...exceeding that automatically makes your call worthless regardless of if you were courteous or not talkless of the ones who will call and insult you as if airtel is your father's company...i'm not in nigeria right now but it rily grieves me when i hear of stories like this cos it makes me realise how the youths are being taken advantage of just because our govt bodies are not doing what is expected and we have so many foreigners heading our companies...i have worked as a hr person and believe me i know the wahala these indians have...n yes i am a hardworker..they are basically slave drivers and everyone they have worked with always complains abt them yet they want to take home the big bucks but even as a hr person there's a limit to what you can do as you are still an employee...i think it is unfair to work 10 hours at a stretch, looking at the nature of their work too (working in shifts and all that) it is only fair they get reasonable days off to make up for the amount of money they are being paid as it is difficult to survive on 40k in the nigerian economy today in lagos talkless of abuja...i mean if they must pay the 0k then at least make the conditions humane for them...honestly i pray God will help us..i really im looking at how i can help youths in our country cos i cant stand all the suffering anymore

Anonymous said...

I really feel pained in my heart because we have a
Government that does not care about it's citizens. Nigerians have to stand up for their rights. We generally treat foreigners well, but when we get out of Nigeria, u are not regarded as part of them. We should even realize that there are some nigerians who run their companies worse than Indians. This is not the issue here. We need to love ourselves in Nigeria so we are united against foreigners who are only here to plunder our resources. Remember the Chinese are also here and treat nigerians as slaves too. Another story.

Anonymous said...

@anon 12.32 its easy for you to say, come and try sitting in one spot for 10 1hrs talking and talking...and at the end of the month take 40grand home, lets see if you don run mad after 2mnths...idiot!!!

Vivek Golikeri said...

Both sides go too far in this argument. One Nigerian accuses his own people of being lazy and deserving rip-off. Others launch Indian-hating tirades. The real problem here is LABOR EXPLOITATION, and the Nigerian government's failure to protect its own citizens.

Ever consider that rich or government-connected Nigerians may be getting bribed and therefore allowing this to continue? And they aren't Indian! You fools stop talking race, and start talking rebellion.

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