The Tribune

• As means to justify job outsourcing

• Carrier’s first half revenues fall $1.4m

• But non-mobile subscribers up 3,300

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A union leader yesterday accused the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) of trying to make Bahamian staff “look bad to justify” outsourcing local jobs as the carrier’s 2023 first-half revenues fell by $1.4m.

Kenny Knowles, president of the Bahamas Communications and Public Managers Union (BCPMU), which represents BTC middle managers, told Tribune Business the placard-carrying demonstration outside the carrier’s Perpall Tract headquarters (see article on Page 22B) was just the “first step” after Friday’s meeting with chief executive, Sameer Bhatti, failed to achieve the desired results.

Declining to detail what his union and the Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union (BCPOU), which represents BTC’s line staff, plan to do if the grievances of their members are not satisfactorily addressed, he added that senior management “failed to convince us” that their plans will not result in the loss of Bahamian jobs.

Mr Knowles told this newspaper he was especially concerned by a study that Mr Bhatti purportedly said he intends to present to BTC’s Board on the performance of the carrier’s customer contact centre. This, the middle managers union president asserted, suggests that there is a “low answer rate” to customer calls and complaints compared to other countries in the wider Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) and Liberty Latin America group.

Branding this “misleading”, and suggesting the findings were not properly “segmented” and lacked analysis of what was causing the high call volumes, Mr Knowles suggested the latter is resulting from frequent “network outages” sparked by lack of investment in BTC’s infrastructure. And he asserted that the 35 contact centre staff was simply an inadequate number to cope with 43,000 customer inquiries per month, and that the unit must be expanded if it is to function properly.

BTC’s union woes erupted just as Liberty Latin America, its ultimate parent, unveiled 2023 first-half results that showed its Bahamian carrier’s revenues for the first six months of this year fell by 1.5 percent, dropping from $96.1m in the same period last year to $94.7m this time around.

The 2023 second quarter showed similar trends to the first three months, and the second half overall, with revenues down 1.7 percent year-over-year at $47.6m compared to $48.4m during the same period in 2022 - a drop of $600,000. Liberty Latin America’s results do not show the profit performance of its subsidiaries, but BTC’s top-line slid - albeit modestly - during the 2023 first half.

BTC, in which the Government holds a 49 percent stake, fared better in adding new subscribers during the three months to end-June 2023. Liberty Latin America’s statistics showed it added some 3,300 subscribers, or revenue generating units (RGUs), among non-mobile customers during the period.

Internet and video/TV subscribers rose by 1,800 and 1,100, respectively, compared to end-March 2023, while phone RGUs rose by 400 over the same period. BTC’s mobile subscriber numbers, while remaining relatively flat during the 2023 second quarter, still fell by a total 400 as the carrier shed 300 pre-paid subscribers and 100 post-paid. This, at end-June, left it with 167,900 total mobile customers - 144,100 of the pre-paid variety, and 23,800 post-paid.

Mr Knowles, meanwhile, confirmed that yesterday’s protest by BTC union representatives and their members was a response to the outcome of Friday’s meeting between leadership of both unions and Mr Bhatti. “We didn’t get what we were looking for in the meeting, so we went ahead with the demonstration,” he told Tribune Business. “They did not convince us that their plan will not result in a loss of jobs. We were not convinced of that.

“That’s why we took the action to demonstrate. We want them [BTC], the public and the Government to know they plan to send Bahamian jobs out of BTC and out of the country. The indications we saw at that meeting brought us to that conclusion.”

This newspaper reported last week on BTC union concerns that the carrier plans to outsource Bahamian jobs at its customer contact centre to a Pakistan-based vendor. BTC, which declined to comment further on the situation yesterday, referred Tribune Business back to its response last week in which it denied there would be any job losses.

“The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) has not outsourced the job of any Bahamian employed in its contact centre. On the contrary, BTC has consistently on-boarded new colleagues and last year increased its contact centre complement to meet the growing demands of our customers,” BTC said.

“The contact centre remains an integral part of the BTC business, and the company is focused on on-boarding even more local talent to provide best-in-class customer care. We also have plans to onboard young, Bahamian talent through our graduate programme. BTC is currently working on several digital projects and initiatives to modernise its customer care platforms to make them more accessible to customers at their convenience.”

Mr Knowles, though, yesterday reiterated that the unions have not been reassured by this public pledge. Referring to their Friday meeting with Mr Bhatti, he said: “He pretty much confirmed that the [Pakistani] vendor is engaged by CWC, and they’re doing some other work for BTC that resulted in the outsourcing of some other functions.

“The meeting was very informative on the outsourcing of some functions. We are already using the same company to do credit collections. That was interesting. They want to use them again because they are an approved vendor, and felt comfortable with an approved vendor instead of a new vendor. That was the excuse why they did not come to us first.”

Mr Knowles said both unions took the stance that this was “not acceptable”, and that they should have been informed before a decision was taken, given that it potentially involves “outsourcing the functions of the business” and a potential threat to Bahamian jobs and employment.

“He identified challenges in the contact centre. He did not identify a plan to meet those challenges. He did not have a plan that would resolve our concerns of job losses,” the BTC management union chief said of Mr Bhatti. “He showed us a presentation he was going to make to the Board showing calls answered and calls made. We felt it was misleading as it did not provide segmentation and what is contributing to the volume of calls.”

Mr Knowles said, based on the statistics he was shown, the 35 BTC contact centre staff were dealing with around 43,000 calls per month. It was suggested that the high call volume was attracting “a low answer rate” from workers, but he added: “We shut that down and said it was not acceptable and, if that is presented to the Board, it’s misleading.

“The volume of calls is high because the network is failing; it is not being upgraded. And customer calls are not being answered because they do not have the staff resources.” Mr Knowles questioned why there was no IVR recorded message to inform customers of network outages impacting specific areas so they would not be inconvenienced in holding on the phone for 15 minutes or more.

“Are you not doing it because you want to make BTC staff look bad to justify what you’re doing?” he asked. “We went directly to the company, asked what is going on and they did not satisfy our concerns with answers. They did not come and discuss it with us first. They said it would only be temporary, and after a while they would revert back. No, we don’t believe that.

“We want visionary leadership in the company. If they don’t communicate how they’re going to address these challenges, that tells me they don’t know how to address these things or don’t want to address these things.” Mr Knowles, who said he has been with BTC for 30 years, indicated he is well-placed to assess network performance as he implemented and managed the carrier’s dial-up Internet.

He added that CWC was “not delivering” on its promises of improved customer service, experience and a stronger financial performance at BTC - all of which it had promised at the time of the 2011 privatisation. “We’re not seeing that,” Mr Knowles blasted. “Instead they’re taking jobs from BTC and moving them elsewhere.”