POPULAR private television channel Canal 3 Niger has sacked 36 employees who went on a three-day strike to demand pay arrears.
Those sacked on Tuesday include journalists, cameramen and technicians.
Media associations say many journalists in the country, one of the world’s poorest, have not been paid for a year or even more.
Media outlets are grappling with plummeting revenues after Covid-19 pandemic and regional sanctions on the landlocked nation following a coup last year.
Canal 3 Niger head Ismaël Abdoulaye told AFP on Thursday some of the dismissals were for “insubordination” and the others “breach of contract”.
Chamssiyatou Kimba, a spokeswoman for the sacked employees, told a press conference they had been demanding two months’ back pay, adding that the salary arrears owed to them were for “over one-and-a-half years”.
“Instead of the two months’ salary we were demanding, they paid us for only one month and we went on strike,” Kimba said.
Canal 3 Niger head Abdoulaye said the “day they received a month’s salary in back pay… everyone disappeared without ensuring minimum service”.
“The strike was illegal, there are procedures to be followed to go on strike,” he added.
But Kimba disputed this, saying the strikers had informed the management about their intention to take industrial action.
