Leadership (Abuja)
Ime Akpan
18 October 2007
Abuja — The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) have expressed solidarity for the planned strike by Aviation Unions Grand Alliance (AUGA) to press for the payment of about N29.7 billion severance benefits owed former employees of the defunct Nigeria Airways Limited (NAL).
The secretary general of TUC, John Kolawole, stated this while addressing newsmen in Lagos.
He said there would be no going back on the proposed industrial action which begins on Sunday, October 21 should the federal government refuse to honour its pledge to pay the former employees of the liquidated NAL.
"We have waited a lot and we are tired of waiting for our terminal benefits, and come Sunday if nothing is done or no concrete move is made by the federal government, we will effect a full blown strike," he declared.
He disclosed that AUGA had put all the security apparatus in the airports on the alert in preparation for the plan to shut down the country's airspace at the expiration of the Sunday deadline.
In his reaction, the general secretary of National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Gideon Ogbuji, said the workers had taken the action after waiting for the government of President Musa Yar'Adua to address the issue.
He said the unions shelved the first strike action because President Yar'Adua pledged at the inception of his administration that his government would look into the issue of the workers.
Ogbuji, however, lamented that about four months into the life of the present government, the issue was yet to be addressed.
Thereafter, he stated that about 460 of the NAL former employees had died while waiting endlessly for the payment of their entitlements.
Sarah Rindams, who represented Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN), decried a situation in which government paid lip service to the plight of the workers four years after they lost their jobs.
It is noteworthy that workers of the defunct carrier were forced out of the airline's premises by policemen on September 27, 2003 following the liquidation of the company by the President Olusegun Obasanjo's administration.
About 2,500 of the 7,000 workers caught in the web of the liquidation exercise are yet to collect their entitlements even as who worked for the airline's foreign offices had long been paid.
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