Union suspends proposed shut-down of NCAA

The Ministry of Transportation has waded into the dispute between the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) over promotion of workers in the agency.
 
The workers’ union and her partners had placed an ultimatum on the NCAA which upon its expiration would entail total shutdown of the NCAA in its five regional offices
 
But a few hours before the exercise was to be carried out, the National President of the union and the Ministry met, prompting suspension of the shut-down of the agency.
 
The Secretary-General of NUATE, Olayinka Abioye said consequent upon this intervention from the Ministry and on the advise from stakeholders, “We regret to inform you that our industrial action is hereby suspended forthwith, as the NCAA management, the Ministry and our Union engage in social dialogue towards the settlement of the matter in dispute”.
 ncaa
The union had 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 affect 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.
“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”.
A source in NCAA maintained 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.”
Wole Shadare