Telenor officials, with chief executive Jon Fredrik Baksaas at center, admit they have failed to adequately monitor working conditions at GrameenPhone's suppliers.PHOTO: SVEIN ERIK FURULUND
NINA BERGLUND
A DANISH TV documentary has revealed miserable working conditions and environmental violations at companies in Bangladesh that act as suppliers to GrameenPhone, which is co-owned by Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor and firms founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.
It's an embarrassing labour scandal for Telenor, which itself is majority-owned by the government of Norway, a country that prides itself on championing fair labour conditions and human rights.
It also reflects poorly on Grameen Telecom and Grameen Bank, which own 38 percent of GrameenPhone (Telenor has 62 percent) and which were founded by Peace Prize-winner Yunus not least to help lift people in Bangladesh out of abject poverty through the micro-credit system.
The documentary, made by Danish journalist Tom Heinemann and to be aired on Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) Thursday evening, reveals shocking working conditions at the firms supplying GrameenPhone. Employees were shown working with hazardous chemicals and heavy metals virtually without protection. Workers were as young as 13 years, a clear violation of child labour laws. The firms were caught allowing polluted wastewater to spill into nearby rice fields.
And in one case, a worker was killed when he fell into an unsecured pool of acid.
Telenor, clearly believing that the best defense is a good offense, opted to reveal some of the findings of the documentary even before it was aired. Telenor officials claim they were shaken by the documentary's findings, and admit they failed to adequately monitor the operations of GrameenPhone's suppliers.
"We are deeply moved by the case, and the human side of it," Telenor chief executive Jon Fredrik Baksaas told reporters. He called the labour violations "completely unacceptable," claiming Telenor had trained the firms in health and safety issues. "But we've clearly been bad about following up afterwards," Baksaas admitted.
He neglected to mention the worker fatality, but confirmed it when questioned by a reporter from Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende.
Telenor and the Norwegian state have generated huge profits on GrameenPhone, which has as many as 20 million customers, but Baksaas said he didn't feel badly that the operation earns a lot on the work of poor employees. "We haven't taken out substantial dividends on what we've earned in Bangladesh," Baksaas said. "The money has gone into investments that are building up the country."
Norway's government minister in charge of business and industry, Dag Terje Andersen, wrote in an e-mail to Aftenposten that the working conditions shown in the documental "assuming they are accurate, clearly are unacceptable."
Andersen claimed, however, that Telenor has worked actively for years to make its own ethical regulations part of all operations, also those at suppliers. "It looks like the follow-up on the part of Telenor was inadequate," he wrote. Telenor has since conducted inspections at five suppliers of mobile telephone masts, and has fired one of them.
Telenor and Yunus have been involved in a long-simmering conflict over ownership of GrameenPhone. Yunus has wanted Telenor to reduce its stake. #
Photos Telenor: (Above) The documentary shows miserable working conditions at several firms supplying Telenor-owned GrameenPhone. Hard-hats were donned when Telenor came to inspect. (Below) Telenor's Baksaas with Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. Together, they own GrameenPhone, although Yunus has wanted Telenor to reduce its stake.
First published in Aftenposten (News from Norway), May 14, 2008
Telenor responds to child labour row in Bangladesh
ReplyDeleteOSLO, May 20 (Reuters) - The board of Norwegian telecoms group Telenor backed its chief executive on Tuesday after reports of dangerous job conditions and the use of child labour by subcontractors in Bangladesh.
A Danish television documentary last week revealed dangerous working conditions, accidental deaths, pollution and use of children at Telenor's subcontractors in Bangladesh, unleashing a flood of criticism in Norwegian media.
Telenor holds 62 percent of Bangladesh operator Grameenphone, which employed the subcontractors to make mobile antenna towers.
The documentary's revelations that children were employed at the Bangladeshi suppliers caused stern rebukes in Norway of Telenor from organisations like Save the Children.
Chief Executive Jan Fredrik Baksaas, who has faced criticism for not knowing about the conditions, was called in to brief the board about the situation on Tuesday.
The CEO has the full confidence of the Board and we are satisfied with the initiatives that (Telenor) has taken," Chairman Harald Norvik said in a statement.
Norvik said this was a "serious situation" which should never had happened, but that the focus should now be on measures to rectify it.
Shares in Telenor, the world's seventh largest mobile operator, traded flat at 197.25 crowns by 1316 GMT, valuing the group at about 180 billion crowns ($35.91 billion), after rising as much as 1.6 percent on the day.
"This may affect Telenor's reputation, but financially, it is less important," said analyst Espen Torgersen at Carnegie.
The documentary said children as young as 13 years old worked at the factories, climbing with no safety net in the 50 metres tall antenna towers.
It also revealed how a 22-year old worker died when falling into a non-secured pool of acid and that farmers had their crops ruined by waste from the factories.
ZERO TOLERANCE
Grameenphone said it was working with the vendors to ensure compliance with all relevant local regulations and to improve conditions in factories but admitted it did not do enough.
"We have zero tolerance for any breach of local laws and regulations and we are committed to improve the working conditions in these vendor factories," said Anders Jensen, chief executive of Grameenphone, top cellphone carrier in Bangladesh.
"We have been working methodically with the tower vendors to ensure compliance with all local laws and regulations relating to the use of child labour and health, safety and environment issues," he told Reuters in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.
"However, our follow-up measures may not have been adequate," he added.
The vendors were providing services to the entire telecoms industry in Bangladesh, not just Grameenphone.
Telenor said on May 14 that it recognised that inspection routines at the Bangladesh units had been inadequate.
Telenor said it had carried out inspections at factory premises, requested confirmation that conditions were in accordance with standards and that it terminated business connections with one vendor.
It also said working conditions for the remaining suppliers would be subject to a review, improvements in control routines would be implemented and a review of all Grameenphone contracts with suppliers was underway. #
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