For refusing their workers to join the trade union of their choice in the Nigerian aviation industry, the National Union of Air Transport Employee (NUATE), has once again threatened to picket erring airlines.
The union insisted that the refusal of the airlines, especially domestic operators from allowing their staff to join any of the unions, was a contravention of their human rights, reports Daily Independent.
Comrade Ben Nnabue, the President, NUATE, stated this today at the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos during the peaceful protest organised by the union.
According to Nnabue, some of the airlines also threaten their workers with sack for daring to show interest in joining the unions.
He purported that the union had received the backing of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) based in London in carrying out the actions against any defaulting airlines.
He stressed that at the last global labour unions conference held in Singapore, it was observed that a lot of organisations were not unionised, hence the mandate to ensure that slave labour was eliminated on the African continent.
He said: “In Nigeria we have come to terms with the reality that the majority of our domestic airlines don’t want their workers to join unions while some have allowed their staff to be unionised. Others at the point of entrance warned their staff against joining any trade union of their choice.
“We have been on this for the past five years. We have reported to the Ministers of Labour and Aviation Industry. All of them have been promising us that something will be done, but you can’t be following up a project for five years. It means that they want to do anything.
“At the last meeting we had at the ITF, fortunately I am the Chairman of the ITF Branch in Nigeria, the ITF is in full support of our action today. They also sent their Regional Secretary, Comrade Itsafianu to come and monitor the process and also comrade Dayo was sent from London to come see what we are doing about it. That shows how serious the global body views the decisions of our airlines not to allow their workers to join the trade unions.”
Also speaking, Comrade Ocheme Aba, General Secretary, NUATE, maintained that it would be in the good interest of airlines and organisations in the aviation sector to allow their workers to join the labour unions.
Aba wondered why some of the airlines disallowed their staff from joining the unions of their choice, stressing that those who allowed them to join had not shut down operations.
He emphasised that most of the airlines that have went under, apart from the defunct Nigeria Airways, which was liquidated by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2004, were the ones that didn’t allow their staff to unionise.
He explained that for instance, an airline worker that is unionised would never cut corners and work according to the rules of the industry.
