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May Day As MayDay For Aviation Workers
Nigerian workers joined their counterparts all over the world to mark Workers’ Day. In truth, May 1 appears to just be a mere ceremony in Nigeria as conditions of workers are yet to improve amid so many labour challenges in the aviation sector, writes WOLE SHADARE
May Day significance
Labour Day or International Workers’ Day is observed each year on May 1 to celebrate the achievements of the working class. The day, also called May Day, is also observed as a public holiday in many countries. It came into prominence in India in 1923.
The celebration of the working class in Nigeria is fast turning into a ceremonial event for workers across the country as many workers do not have anything to celebrate.
May Day turning to MayDay
In the past, so many workers looked forward to May Day, a day to evaluate their work over the years and to see whether they have made appreciable progress.
But today, May 1 of every year is turning to MayDay – a word used around the world to make a distress call via radio communications for the generality of Nigerian workers and aviation workers in particular. Mayday signals a life-threatening emergency, usually on a ship or a plane, although it may be used in a variety of other situations.
The other situation where MayDay is applicable typifies the harrowing conditions of workers in the aviation industry. For so many years, the issues have been the same. Nigerian workers have been pummeled to a level that makes them lose their voices.
In the aviation industry, workers are battling so many issues to make their lives better. Despite efforts to ameliorate aviation workers’ poor conditions of service, the issues are yet to be resolved.
Battle
The National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), an apex aviation union in Nigeria, have consistently taken the battle against many organisations, which barred their members from joining any of the various trade unions in the sector.
The group has made giant strides when it announced returns from its organising efforts with Heliserve and Lomatok global Services in Warri joining the NUATE family, while they are at the concluding stages of unionising about three other organisations. Nevertheless, this is still a far cry from where they want to be.
Big local airlines continue to defy the law on free association and union membership, while the promise by the Minister of Labour for his intervention has not been kept.
NUATE said it is left with its own devices to see to it that all aviation workers, particularly in Air Peace, Azman Air and Dana Air, among others, are fully freed from slave labour this year.
Issues
Not a few are aware of the numerous problems facing the aviation industry such as terminal congestion, delays, flight cancellations and modernisation of air traffic control – issues that seem to rise to the forefront to be addressed again and again.
The regulatory agencies and others have redoubled their efforts to address these serious problems. Recently, however, a new problem has risen, creating further havoc in the system. While Labour negotiations in the airline industry have been ongoing for years, things have begun to worsen. Many airlines and corporate organisations in aviation forbid their workers to unionise.
This action has pitted several unions in the aviation industry against many of the airlines and organisations and, in most cases, led to disruption of activities in the sector that is safety-dependent.
Lingering conditions of service implementation
The twin big issues of minimum wage consequential adjustment and conditions of service for the aviation agencies are currently raging. NUATE National President, Ben Nnabue, in his national day speech, said that the union stood firmly by the decision of workers not to accept continuing shifting of the goal post by government agencies on these issues, threatening that this week has been set out for major decisions and subsequent decisive actions that will bring these issues to a foreclosure.
These acrimonious negotiations now adversely affect the Nigerian people. Apart from the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), which has since implemented new conditions of service for its workers, all other agencies in the aviation industry have continued to delay the implementation of workers’ rights.
Aviation workers under the aegis of the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) and Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN) have protested against the poor condition of service of workers of the various aviation agencies, which have been on for seven years.
Also, the Association of Aviation Professionals (ANAP) and the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE) have called for an expeditious review of the condition of service of workers of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET).
The Amalgamated Union of Public Corporation, Civil Service Technical, and Recreational Services Employees (AUPCTRE) has called for the implementation of the negotiated conditions of Service of all the agencies’ workers under the Ministry of Aviation, which it said had lingered for nine years.
The NUATE president stated that workers are equally unsatisfied with ongoing discussions around the big question of airport concession, stressing that the workers are unclear as to the government’s actual response to the demands of aviation unions on labour issues and many lapses in the concession programme.
‘Caverton Helicopters’ wicked regime’
The NUATE chief berated what he described as the ‘wicked regime in Caverton Helicopters,’ alleging that the owner and his son-managing director chose to enrich themselves by the ‘blood of the employees’ of the airline. Salaries and other entitlements of workers are denied at will.
Workers who are forced out of the company never receive their benefits as per Conditions of Service. All agreements entered into with the union and with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) under the mediation of the Ministry of Labour have all been kept in the breach Nnabue said: “The owner and his son MD are clearly unfit, or too wicked, to have human beings work for them. I use this opportunity to charge all aviation workers to prepare for a mother of all strike actions against Caverton Helicopters at a date to be shortly announced.”
Nnabue also took a veiled swipe at the astronomical hike in airfares by airlines in the country, which put the minimum fares at N50,000. He noted that against the background of negative travellers’ reactions to recent airfare increases, these multiple adversities, he noted, have been exceedingly crippling, particularly for airlines.
This, to him, has delayed the exit of the industry from recession as more people have shunned air travel because of the enormous increase in airfares. Air travel is one of the barometers to gauge the health of a nation.
Whenever a country is doing well, it will reflect on the number of people that travel by air. Nigerian aviation is not a stand-alone, it is part of the bigger economy of Nigeria and contributes to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). To this end, it is obvious that aviation is the quickest barometer to check any economy.
Last line
Overall, the expectations of Nigerian workers are yet to be met. In the aviation industry, the implementation of several agreements that would better the lives of workers are still been debated, several years after they were signed.
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