Hundreds of Puerto Rican telephone workers have protested on Wednesdayagainst the privatisation of the state telephone company.

The Governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Rossello, said a United States company GTE Corpand a group of local investors would take a fifty-one percent share in the company.

The deal still has to receive Senate approval.

Union leaders say some of the company's eight thousand employees will be laid-off in the deal and have threatened a general strike in protest.

The vice-president of the telephone trade union , Jose Enrique Perez de Jesus,told the BBC that they plan to take their protest to the state assembly.