The National Union of Air Transport Employees has threatened to picket offices of airlines operating in the country that have refused to allow their staff to join trade unions of their choice.
NUATE noted that it was against labour law for airlines to refuse their employees the right to join any union of their choice.
Speaking at a peaceful protest tagged ‘National Campaign for the Unionisation of Private Domestic Airlines in Nigeria’ at the General Aviation Terminal of the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos on Monday, the National President of NUATE, Ben Nnabue, told the workers that the union had received the backing of the International Transport Workers Federation based in London in carrying out their actions.
He stressed that at the last global labour union conference held in Singapore, it was observed that a lot of organisations were not unionised, which necessitated a resolution that slave labour should be eliminated on the African continent.
Nnabue 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 unionise. Others at the point of entrance warned their staff against joining any trade union of their choice.
“We have been doing this for the past five years. We have reported to the ministers of labour and aviation. All of them have been promising us that something will be done, but you can’t be following up on a project for five years, which means that they don’t want to do anything.”
According to the NUATE president, at the last meeting they had at the ITF, it was in full support of the union’s action.
“They also sent their regional secretary, Comrade Itsafianu to come and monitor the process and Comrade Dayo was sent from London to come see what we are doing about it. That shows how seriously the global body views the decisions of our airlines not to allow their workers to join the trade unions,” he declared.
He, however, warned, “This is the last olive branch we intend to extend to them; the next time we will have to use what the laws allow us to do. We will picket them, but we have to exhaust all the channels of dialogue first. Then, we are at liberty to use the last resort, which is to picket those organisations.”
