May Day: Aviation Unions want issues of minimum wage, consequential adjustment, CoS addressed

As Aviation workers join their counterparts the world over to celebrate May Day, the Association of Nigeria Aviation Professionals (ANAP) has called for the immediate payment of the new minimum wage and consequential adjustment.

Speaking with newsmen during the May Day celebration, Secretary of ANAP, Comrade Abdulrazak Saidu said, since 2019, the unions have been meeting with the ministry of aviation and the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission for the implementation and payment of the minimum wage but to no avail.

According to him, aviation workers were unhappy as their welfare were not given priority by government.

“The workers are being frustrated, they are really agitated, frankly speaking, they are not happy working under this situation because any management that are anti-workers we are going to face them squarely. We have told the Ministry of aviation, the wages commission that the frustration is getting too much, we are going to reject it. If they don’t implement minimum wage and consequential adjustment, we have made up our mind, we will take the battle to the full”.

The ANAP scribe also condemned the appointment of non-professionals as Directors in the agencies hinging it on the absence of the Governing Board of Directors for the agencies.

Comrade Saidu emphasized that,  appointments of most of the Directors in the system needed to be reviewed and professionals should be allowed to handle sensitive positions to ensure productivity. 

He stated that, while the chief executives were professionals, the non-professional Directors were frustrating their efforts because of poor knowledge of the job, adding that, their duties were transfered to their subordinates to handle.

“Unfortunately, they have used political decision to flood the management of those parastatals with politicians thereby making the chief executives who are professionals difficult to operate, unless they put the round peg into round holes in those directorates that they say is political appointment, we will continue to lag behind in the aviation industry”.

ANAP scribe said, the Unions have done everything possible to sustain industrial harmony but the aviation ministry remained a clog in the wheel of progress with the neglect of workers welfare and hijacking the workers functions concerning the Condition of Service, CoS.

He commended workers in the aviation sector for their resilient and struggle towards building greater work force and urged them not to relent.

President, National Union of Air Transport Employees, NUATE, Comrade Ben Nnabue, stressed that, the twin big issues of Minimum Wage, Consequential Adjustment and Conditions of Service for the aviation Agencies are currently raging and must be addressed.

“We stand firmly by the decision of workers not to accept continuing shifting of the goal post by government agencies on these issues. Therefore, this week has been set out for major decisions and subsequent decisive actions that will bring these issues to a foreclosure”.

He also mentioned that, the union is unsatisfied with the ongoing discussions around the big question of airports concession, adding that, it is unclear as to government’s actual response to the demands of aviation unions on labour issues and many lapses in the concession program.

“In the coming weeks, important decisions will be made to chart a clear path towards ameliorating already stated demands of workers”.