– Senate Advises Aero Contractors to Recall Sacked Workers
THE Nigerian senate on Thursday asked a leading domestic airline operator in the country to withdraw the sack letter issued its employees, which had hitherto precipitated avoidable industrial crisis.
During an arbitration meeting brokered between the management board of Aero Contractors and the labor union of the company, the senate committee on aviation advised the airline to nullify the dismissal of the affected workers.
The company had on March 13 2013 dismissed about 656 workers in its employ, a move that led to the grounding of operations of the airline.
The managing director of Aero-Contractor, Mr. Obara Ibru, said that 300 of the sacked employees have so far been reabsorbed. However the chairman of the committee faulted the decision to terminate the employment of the affected workers in the first place.
The situation caused by the industrial action was further complicated on Thursday when a communication glitch rendered flight booking activities hopeless at the main airport in Lagos, leaving even more people stranded on their Easter commute.
Dubious airport airline officials and touts hanging around the airport are already making a profit off of the situation, charging airline passengers at almost twice the original rates even as passengers struggled to get seats on flights.
Ticket for some one-hour flight was being sold for N40,000 at the GAT instead of the average price of between N28,000 and N30,000.
The situation was the same at some other airports where a one-hour flight to places like Abuja and Port Harcourt was selling for over N40,000.
The directive by the senate for the workers to be reinstated echoes a similar call by the Nigeria Labor Congress for the workers to be reinstated.
The labour union in a letter signed by, acting National Secretary, Emma Ugboaja, titled, “Don’t Provoke Nigerian Workers”, accused the airline of ignoring all industrial relations mechanisms available in the sector to mediate between it and the workers but instead decided to terminal their appointments.
The labor union threatened that the Nigerian workers would rise against the airline if its management did not rescind its decision and recall the workers.
“We are surprised that despite huge opportunities provided by the existence of vibrant, well informed, matured and responsible trade unions in the aviation sector, the management of Aero Contractors decided to ignore all available industrial relations mechanisms by dismissing over 655 employees of the company and locked out the entire workforce since March 13.
“Before the management carried out these ill informed actions, they had approached the National Industrial Court for an injunction that will provide the management an opportunity to take anti workers decisions without consultation with the unions, the National Union of Air Transport Employees and the Air Transport Senior Staff Association of Nigeria,” the letter said.