Lagos — Trade Union Congress, TUC, an umbrella body of senior staff associations, has rejected the laying off of 500 workers of all cadres by Guinness Nigeria Plc.

The workers said the action of the management of the brewing giant was not only in bad faith but also did not reflect the rising profit profile of the organisation.

In terminating the appointments of about 500 workers, Guinness claimed that the exercise was the result of the discontinued use of old production lines in its operations.

But TUC Secretary General, John Kolawole, said the argument lacked substance, contending that most of the retrenched workers could be trained and retrained on the operations of the new production machines. He stated that as most of them had put in ten years of service they needed to be treated with consideration.

The workers' organisation accused the management of dispensing with the services of the workers in order to engage casual workers who are not only treated shabbily but also do not have any reasonable conditions of service.

"The TUC believes that the management of Guinness Nigeria Plc embarked on the exercise in order to create room for casual workers that have no conditions of service. The organisation had in 1992, 1995 and 1997 embarked on similar restructuring only to fill the vacancies with casual workers and create openings for expatriates in the management cadre," said Kolawole.

The TUC said the exercise was unnecessary and not in consonance with the Federal Government's economic reform programme geared towards providing employment for the people.

Besides, TUC said that the list of jobs to be cut did not go through due process, and that some of the affected members of staff were only victimised because they had no godfathers in the organisation.

The body therefore called for a review of the exercise to ensure that those victimised were recalled while those who must leave are paid their severance benefits without delay.

Particularly, the workers said they were worried by the staff rationalisation at a time they were questioning management's expenditure of millions of naira on entertainment programmes that attract foreign artistes to the country.