News

THE Communications Workers’ Union of Ghana (CWU) has organised 327 call centre workers at Exzeed, a subsidiary company of Ghana Telecom. CWU General Secretary Anthony Ekow Dadzie, revealed this at the UNI-Africa Telecom Conference that was held in Bagamoyo, Tanzania from 1 - 3 December.



Founded in 2004, Exzeed Company Limited is currently putting structures in place to become the best customer service contact centre in Africa by 2007. It is the largest of the five call centre companies operating in Ghana. The company is now considering proposals from South Africa and Gambia to serve as their contact centre.



The Telecoms conference heard that customer care jobs in call centres are projected to grow tremendously. In South Africa alone, over 100,000 jobs where reported to have been created last year and several Western multinational companies are operating call centres in Cape Town.



The conference emphasised the need for unions need to organise call centre workers and ensure that they are afforded skills training and decent work.



Mr. Dadzie said that the CWU, Ghana has also organised workers in the following telecoms companies:

• 251 workers at TV Africa, a French-owned media company
  
• 67 workers at ZTEC, a Chinese equipment vendor
  
• 56 workers at Cable Gold TV (Chinese pay TV)
  
• 48 workers at Datatel
  
• 18 workers at Punch Communication.

He appealed to UNI to help the union with capacity building training on organising skills and recruitment strategies in the Information and Communication Technology (ICTs) sector.