News

The UNI East Asia Telecom Forum meeting in Tokyo 16-17 April, heard how convergence and the regulation around this change to the telecom industry is affecting workers and their jobs. The forum discussed how regulators have been facing these changes. They raised concerns about the way regulation was affecting investment in the new networks that are needed in order to deal with the high levels of network capacity needed to provide for ever increasing types of content. The unions shared information about the different types of regulation being pursued in the East Asian countries, Japan, Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong, and how this was changing the need to invest in these new networks and the employment related issues such as the need for more skilled workers, job security and the contracting out of network construction. As a result of this discussion the unions are concerned that the uncertainty about regulation, proposed separation of companies and the new access networks, is stifling investment.



The unions said that high levels of investment are needed to cover the convergence developing in East Asia but the regulators were restricting the way network companies could ask content providers to help shoulder the burden of those increasing costs and levels of investment. This was seriously affecting network companies cost structures and as these companies already provide high levels of employment to the industry they were increasingly looking to ways to cut employment costs as a result. This was having a detrimental affect on job security, wages and conditions in the telecom industry.



The unions have been discussing ways they can try and lobby governments and regulators to deal with these issues.

Participants at the East Asia UNI Telecom Forum