Unclear status leaves 1,500 postal workers living in poverty

Some 1,519 postal workers have been living in poverty since the Congolese government split the national Post and Telecommunications Office (ONPT) into two entities and placed them under the new Sociétée des Télécommunications du Congo (SOTELCO) in 2002. Since the beginning of 2004, they received just two months pay from their new employer, which, like the old one, belongs to the state. A former postman, Roger Mantedi, who took part in a demonstration last weekend in the capital, Brazzaville, suffers from hypertension. He produced his medical prescriptions with tears in his eyes. "I cannot even pay for a single dose of medicine," he said. "I am forced into the hands of usurers, but I don't know when I can repay the debts that are piling up." The last time the postal workers got paid was in December 2004 and this was only for January – 11 months earlier. SOTELCO finally came up with the money after the angry postal workers staged a series of demonstrations and sit-ins in Brazzaville, organised since last June. "Not a single worker of the former ONPT can claim to live under easy conditions," Jean-Pierre Onka Ngoulou, the secretary-general of the postal-workers’ trade union, Union "Postel Lisanga", said. "None of my children still go to a private school. They were all kicked out because I could not pay their school fees. The public school became useless." What worsened matters is the amount which the workers received, equal to just one third of their monthly salary before the postal service changed its name. In all, SOTELCO owes each employee the equivalent of more than 35 months worth of salaries. SOTELCO's problems are now threatening the social stability in the country, which, after years of war, is still fragile. It also sheds light on the state of government-owned companies and their management practices. The 1,519 postal workers were not officially retired nor dismissed – still, they are without a place to work. They were meant to be integrated into SOTELCO when the government restructured the old postal and communications service, but the administration of SOTELCO said it has no jobs for them. Of the 1,880 former postal employees, 361 were given their jobs back. "The workers of SOTELCO have a status that is not in conformity with the labour regulations," Vivien Obanda, the secretary-general of the Federation of Post and Telecommunications Workers unions, told IRIN. "They are not officially unemployed, but are not allowed to work either." Obanda said the sit-ins would continue until the workers get back their jobs. Another worry of the in-limbo workers is their pensions. Their old and new employers owe the National Social Security Fund 1.5 billion francs CFA (about US $3 million), and the unions are worried that their members will get old and penniless. Under pressure from its creditors, the government in 2001 and 2003 negotiated a social truce that forbids unions to organise strikes. This hiatus helped the government in negotiating with the Bretton Woods Institutions, in particular, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, the IMF demanded that the government also face its social debt and pay salary arrears, pensions and student support schemes of workers from liquidated enterprises. Despite these demands, and in spite of a $60-million surplus in petrol revenues due to high oil prices, the Congolese government has done nothing to improve the conditions its civil servants. The chief administrator of SOTELCO, Rene Serge Blanchard Oba, disagrees with the workers' demands. "We from SOTELCO have never signed a pact with the social partners," he said. "It's the job of the state to solve the problems of the workers without jobs. SOTELCO does not owe back salaries to any of them." SOTELCO has a unique legal status. It is a public company, but its shares are fully owned by the state. The state itself owed the former Post and Telecommunications Office $120 million before it was transformed into SOTELCO. Oba told IRIN this money is needed to solve the financial problems of the new company. The workers called upon the labour court in Brazzaville for help and received support. The court decided that SOTELCO needed to be audited by an independent body, but nothing has happened so far. Mantedi, meanwhile, is desperate. "A good number of our colleagues have died because they could not eat properly and take care of themselves and their families," he said. "By not paying us, the government is killing us - little by little."