Local staff of the Solomon Islands Telecommunications company, Solomon Telekom, has called for the immediate resignation of company CEO, Martyn Robinson.
The 14-page petition called on the Telekom Board to remove Mr. Robinson in seven days should he refuse to resign.Local staff of Solomon Telekom also alleged that there is interference in the operations of the company by the Chairman of the Board, John Beverly, and the petition is also calling for his removal as Chairman of Telekom's Board of Directors.
The set of demands were submitted over the weekend in a petition signed by representatives of Local Managers and Contracted Staff, the Senior Staff Association (SSA) representing the middle management staff, and the Solomon Islands Telecommunication Workers Union (SITWU) representing the lower bracket of the Telekom workforce.
The local employees of Solomon Telekom have pledged total and collective support in their petition for their demands and pledge to take supporting industrial actions if their demands are not addressed.
Issues raised by the local staff include allowances, school fee assistance, the level of interests of staff loans, the distribution of bonus payments, which the local staffs are saying has been done in a manner totally unfair to local staff favoring expatriate staff.
The local employees of Solomon Telekom are also claiming that some of the management practices applied by Robinson breach labour laws in the country and in some cases; they believed that he had also misled the Commissioner of Labour particularly in the area of localization.
Neither Martin Robinson nor John Beverly could be reached for comments.