Telmex assures in a statement published after the outbreak of the strike that “the quality and continuity” of all its telecommunications services were guaranteed thanks to its “state-of-the-art technology, which allows it to have a network that operates autonomously.”
At noon this Thursday, Telmex’s unionized workers affiliated with the Telephone Operators’ Union of the Mexican Republic (STRM) announced that they went on strike due to alleged violations of the Collective Labor Agreement that they hold with the company.
The Telecommunications Law Institute (IDET) urged the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) to monitor the strike of Telmex’s unionized workers to avoid possible risks in the operation of telecommunications services and affectations to the company’s users.
The subsidiary company of América Móvil serves 21.3 million users, of which 10.1 million correspond to broadband and 11.2 million to fixed lines.
“As it is a Public Service of General Interest, as defined in the sixth article of the Political Constitution, the IDET hopes that the differences that led to the strike will be resolved soon and that, under these circumstances, all Telmex users , both residential and corporate are not affected by the aforementioned strike scenario,” the Institute said in a statement.
The IDET also asked the IFT not to allow its autonomy to be violated by external political pressures that have the purpose of relaxing the scope of the regulatory obligations to which Telmex is subject, either by virtue of its concession title or from those that derive of its character as Preponderant Economic Agent in the Telecommunications Sector (AEP-T), or else, whose purpose is to stop the release of any sanction procedure that is in the process of being resolved by that regulatory body.
For the IDET it does not go unnoticed that situations like this are what justify the telecommunications regulatory body being separated from the central government, in order to isolate it from any type of political pressure.
The IFT declared América Móvil as a preponderant economic agent in 2014, that is, a company that has more than 50% of the telecommunications market share, subjected the company to specific measures such as functional separation (Telmex-Telnor), sharing infrastructure to other operators in the sector, among others, in order to reduce their market share.
The Secretary of Labor mediates the negotiations between the company and its union. Both sides are expected to reach an agreement tomorrow afternoon. Earlier Telmex said in a statement that “it maintains a respectful relationship with its workforce” and that it would resume negotiations with the union representation to “reach an agreement.”
