Fakoyejo OlalekanThe Federal Government has been issued 14-day ultimatum by the aviation unions to review the legislation that aims to prevent aviation workers from protesting.
Aviation workers union, National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), said it will shut down activities in the sector if the government fails to exclude the clause from the act within the grace period.
Workers in the aviation industry made their grievance known through a protest held around airport premises on Monday across several states, resulting to heavy gridlock.
According to the President of National Union of Air Transport Employees, Ben Nnabue, the clause preventing aviation workers from protesting was maliciously included in the act before it was sent to President Muhammadu Buhari.
Nnabue explained that the union had approached the National Assembly to amend the act, but it was eventually included by the Nigerian lawmakers.
“Sometime last year, we went to the national assembly to amend the act establishing the agencies, so that it would be more progressive. There was one obnoxious clause that talked about trade unions not going on strike.” Nnabue said.
The President of NUATE added that, “We were shocked that before they sent it to the president for assent, those clauses were maliciously inserted. So we have to fight for them to remove it. That’s the whole idea.”
Nnabue said the protest held on Monday was a peaceful one, but if the government doesn’t meet the demand, the next action will be strike, grounding activities in the airport.
“It is a peaceful demonstration. It is after now and they didn’t hear us or didn’t look at our demands, then we get to the level of grounding the operations of airports.” he told The Cable, disclosing, “We have given government 14-days ultimatum to look at our demands, after which we now do what is called strike.”
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