2024-08-03 21:56:47
In 2022 and 2023, the state-owned telephone company CNT recorded losses. Operating income has fallen, but salary spending continues to grow.
The public company Corporación Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (CNT) is obliged to comply with all the benefits provided for in the collective agreement, which came into force in January 2024, by order of a Conciliation and Arbitration Court of the Ministry of Labor.
However, the entity confirmed to PRIMICIAS that, as of July 2024, it does not have the necessary budget to pay two of the benefits to the 5,655 workers covered by this collective agreement:
Family allowance:
It consists of a payment of 0.6% of the monthly salary for each child up to 18 years of age. For example, if a worker earns USD 1,000, he or she will receive USD 6 per month or USD 72 per year.
And the subsidy for the worker’s seniority, which is a monthly payment equivalent to 0.25% of the worker’s remuneration, for the number of years worked.
The subsidy cannot exceed USD 60 per month. This means that if a person earns the subsidy cap of USD 60 per month, he or she would be receiving USD 720 in a year. Therefore, although the rest of the benefits of the contract are being applied, these two have not been paid, said CNT.
CNT warned of a lack of resources in 2023
This was one of the arguments put forward by the state-owned company during the negotiation of the collective agreement with the company committee, between August and September 2023. In this process, the two parties did not reach an agreement and ended up in the arbitration court.
The CNT did not agree to pay these two subsidies, arguing that it did not have the necessary resources to pay them. The telephone company was only willing to pay a transport subsidy (USD 0.50 per working day) and a food subsidy (USD 4 per day).
Following its analysis of the case, in November 2023, the Ministry of Labor’s Arbitration Court questioned the public company: “CNT refused to review the collective agreement because it is subject to purely financial purposes, which necessarily imply affirming that work is a commodity.”
The court, with four of the five members voting, concluded that: “Work cannot be considered a commodity and the recognition of rights cannot be subject to economic reasons, but must be based on other principles, including the intangibility of labor rights.” And with that, it rejected the argument of the lack of budget presented by CNT and ruled in favor of the union. With that, the collective agreement came into force, without CNT agreeing.
In that Court, the only one who did not agree with the ruling was the president, Paúl Muñoz, who was the representative of the Ministry of Labor. Muñoz argued that there are ministerial agreements that make it clear that a collective contract requires a favorable opinion from the Ministry of Finance certifying the existence of resources to cover that contract.
CNT and even the Ministry of Labor today insist that this contract does not have such a ruling. Hence, on July 1, 2024, the Ministry of Labor asked the Comptroller’s Office to review this contract so that it can be declared null and void.
CNT fails to raise its head
CNT has already recorded two consecutive years of losses in its financial statements. And that is why the contribution of resources that the company used to make with its surpluses to the State Budget has also fallen.
The state telephone company is competing with two giants of the private sector, which are also among the companies with the highest sales and profits in the country: Otecel (Movistar) and Conecel (Claro). In 2022, the public company reported losses of USD 47.3 million and in 2023, losses of USD 50.9 million, according to data from the Coordinator of Public Companies in Liquidation (Emco).
This is explained by the fact that the company has seen a sustained decline in its operating income since 2018. In that year, it had operating income of USD 963 million, but by 2023, the income fell to USD 501 million. However, the company has tried to cut costs. Operating expenses were USD 773.5 million in 2018 and by 2023 they fell to USD 586.2 million.
But payroll expenses are one of those that have not been able to be adjusted. In 2018, the company spent USD 145.5 million on compensation and benefits for workers. By 2023, the expense rose to USD 152.7 million.
One of the factors that drove this increase in spending was that more than 3,000 workers entered into collective bargaining after a ruling by a Manabí judge, who granted the union a protective action in March 2022. This ruling is being analyzed even by the Constitutional Court, which suspects that the process may have been incorrect. In this scenario, CNT also asked the Constitutional Court to declare the inexcusable error of the judges who issued this ruling.
By: PRIMICIAS