NCAA, union in fresh face-off over promotion

Except a truce is reached before tomorrow, workers’ union in the aviation industry under the aegis of National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) are prepared for a show-down with the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) over promotion of workers in the agency.

Consequently, the union has concluded plans to ground the agency until their demands are met.

A top official of the union, who pleaded anonymity, confirmed to Woleshadare.net the resolve of the union to shut down activities of NCAA on Wednesday over non-promotion of staff.

The unions also accused the management of the agency of favouritism against some sections of the country.

But NCAA management is insisting that the demands of the unions cannot be met, a situation that has placed the NCAA and NUATE on collision course.

The union alleged that those that sat for promotion exams in NCAA and passed are deliberately not promoted by the management, stressing that it required approval from the Ministry of Transport before it could effect workers’ promotion.

The source told our correspondent that arrangements had reached an advance stage on the shutting down of the regulatory agency.

The source said that all pleas to the Director-General of NCAA, Capt. Muhtar Usman, to implement the promotion and other issues raised by the unions had failed.

The union also accused management of NCAA of not responding to any of the letters written to it in the past on the issue, vowing that the picketing would go ahead as planned.

Currently, the unions, it was gathered, are mobilising the state council leaderships for the picketing of the agency on tomorrow.

The union said: “Our leaderships at the national level have told us to be prepared for total grounding of NCAA this Wednesday.

It seems the Director-General in NCAA have made up their minds not to listen to the demands of the unions, which is primarily on staff welfare.

“How can someone sit for an examination, pass and yet, the director-general will use his fiat to say they should not be promoted, not because of lack of money, but because he felt they came from a particular region of the country and some who are not qualified are given accelerated promotion.

But, one of the management staff in NCAA has vowed to quash the planned picketing of the agency.

According to the senior staff, the unions had attempted to picket the agency last Wednesday, but it was averted by the management.

The agency source insisted that the demands of the unions could not be met as all those who sat for and passed the promotional exams could not be promoted, citing lack of financial resources for the reason.

The source added that management had set up a committee to address some of the issues raised by the unions and wondered why it is still bent on pushing ahead with the strike when the committee had not be dissolved.

The NCAA staff said: “The unions are aware that there is a committee on ground to address the complaints they raised. However, their demands can’t be met as they want all staff interviewed in the last exercise to be promoted, whether vacancies exist or not. That is the position of the management.”

It would be recalled that the unions had on 29th June, 2017, issued one week ultimatum to NCAA to address all the issues raised by them.

Wole Shadare