The United Labour Congress of Nigeria (ULC) on Tuesday appealed to the Federal Government to prevail on the management of Seawolf Engineering Oil Services as well as AMCON to pay Seawolf workers terminal entitlements.
Mr Joe Ajaero, the president of ULC, said that the payment of the entitlements would prevent industrial crisis while responding to questions from journalists in Lagos.
He noted that the workers had not been paid their benefits after they were laid off in 2013.
Ajaero said that it was sad that since AMCON took over the operations of Seawolf, its management had neglected paying the workers their entitlements.
“We call on the Federal Government, the owner of AMCON, to intervene.
“It should direct AMCON to instruct the management of Seawolf to pay the workers their terminal benefits in line with the laws of the nation.
“The law governing work place relation states that workers, who are laid off by their employers, should be paid. This will avert any impending crisis and diffuse tension in the sector.
“If nothing is done, we shall give NUPENG every backing it needs in its legitimate pursuit,” the union leader said.
Tag: Ajaero
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Pay Seawolf workers’ entitlements, Ajaero appeals to AMCON
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Ajaero to Wabba: you’re desperate, frustrated
President of the United Labour Congress of Nigeria (ULC) Joe Ajaero has described NLC factional President Ayuba Wabba as an incompetent administrator.
Ajaero told The Nation in his reaction to Wabba’s statement that the ULC was beyond him and Igwe Achese, as it clearly brought together men and women determined to create a platform that would offer Nigerians and workers a renewed hope in the portends of the labour movement.
He said: “We have clearly gone beyond the issues of the well-acknowledged duplicitous delegates’ conference of 2015 and the subsequent reconciliation efforts scuttled by the desires of Ayuba to continue sitting on the collective desires of Nigerian workers and their unions to reform the movement and reposition it to serve Nigerian workers and the masses better.
“His (Wabba) insistence and fixation on this shows a complete naivety of the traditions and workings of the trade union movement. Anyway, this is a demonstration of utter desperation and the frustration of a drowning man who has refused to understand that you do not trifle with workers’ interests and hope to bind them to yourself by the use of force. The laws of the land are very clear on where the powers of each union resides. It is the Unions that affiliates with the centres and not individual workers. The unions have taken their decision to leave and that is how it stands.
“It is important that we remind you that there is a natural law guaranteed in our constitution and various statutes which allows us that freedom of choice to decide who we can or cannot associate with.
“This natural law is fundamental and transcends our laws and statutes but fortunately in this case has been given vent by our various statutes.
“It is this same guarantee that protects all of us especially workers from rabid slavery in the hands of desperate despots bent on holding them captive forever.
“This is what allows individuals to freely choose and that is why a man or woman who is a Catholic or Anglican today would choose to become a Pentecostal tomorrow and nobody can do anything about it.
“It is also what allows politicians to move from one party to another as you must have observed in the case of the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) and APC (All Progressives Congress).
“When one construct becomes obsolete and no longer in a position to deliver on its promises to its publics, individuals leave. That is what has happened in this case, Nigerian workers have freely chosen to move on so that you can preserve your NLC. Remember that it was part of your pleadings in the Court.”
Explaining the mission of the new labour body, Ajaero said: “You may not understand the centrality of this statement as it defines our emergence and our determination. We are not wholly interested in the characters and personalities involved but in ensuring that we create a platform that is continually able to protect the interest and desires of Nigerian workers and peoples.
“It is paradoxical though that a man who has done everything to undermine unity within the movement debasing our various traditions and truncated democratic organs in his union for purely selfish reasons would begin to preach democracy.
“Any man that extended his tenure in total perversion of his Union’s constitution cannot be trusted with anything talk less of democracy and that explains the conundrum which your usurpation of the Labour House has created within the movement.
“We advise Ayuba, instead of embarking on a futile mission outside of his capacities and capabilities, to rather concentrate on dousing the fires within his NLC which is what we think should bother him more.
“When our attention was drawn to this, we had truly thought that he was focusing on solving the internal schisms which his style of leadership has created for those who still share the same umbrella with him. This is our comradely advice”. -
‘Ajaero, ULC leaders against collective interest’
Factional labour leader Ayuba Wabba has accused the promoters of the United Labour Congress of Nigeria (ULC) of selfishness.
Reacting to ULC’s emergence, Wabba said: “Our attention has been drawn to news report in which Comrade Joe Ajaero, the General Secretary of NUEE, and Igwe Achese, President of NUPENG, claimed they have formed a new labour centre called the United Labour Congress (ULC).
“It will be recalled that following their defeat at the March 2015 rescheduled election in their bid to lead the NLC, these comrades have been parading themselves as ‘president, and ‘deputy president’ of NLC respectively.
“The congress would like to assure our members across the length and breadth of the country and the general public that the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress is committed to the unity of the working class in the country notwithstanding the latest declaration by Comrade Ajaero and Achese.
“We shall do everything within our power to preserve the unity and coherence of the labour movement which was handed down to us by our forebears in the movement.
“It will be recalled that our comrades in their ambition to lead Nigerian Workers in February, 2015, at the elections which would have concluded the 10th delegates conference of the NLC, disrupted and scattered the ballot papers that were already casted, in the full glare of the world.
“This was after delegates had voted to waive the requirement to allow Comrade Igwe Achese who has been campaigning to be President, to step down to deputy president position, and declare support for the candidacy of Joe Ajaero.
“At the rescheduled election held in March 2015, following the intervention of the veterans of our movement, and with the provision of adequate security, the plot of comrades Ajaero and Achese to disrupt the elections again once it was clear that their combined forces will not deliver them the leadership of Nigerian workers they had so clamoured for, was thwarted, and the election results were successfully announced.”
Recalling the efforts by the reconciliatory committee headed by Sunmonu to reconcile the aggrieved parties, Wabba said the NLC dissipated considerable energy working with the labour veterans to bring the estranged comrades back to the congress
He said: “Unfortunately, as Nigerians saw during our last national strike against the fuel price increase by the Federal Government, our comrades chose to allow themselves to be used as willing tools to undermine our collective struggle.
“It is quite ironic that these comrades can’t see the contradiction between their empty rhetoric on wanting to ‘fight non-payment of salaries’ and collaboration with the state to undermine popular action of the working people and the Nigerian masses.
“And yet, when the congress was in the frontline forcing their home state government(s) to pay workers their wages and halt retrenchment of thousands of workers, they were nowhere to be seen.
“The congress wish to assure all our members including those of NUEE, NUPENG and others listed as having attended the alleged launch of the new centre, that the NLC will continue to provide protection for them, and will ensure that their leaders do not out of their consuming ambition to be leaders of a ‘national center’ lead them into the wilderness.” -
Ajaero’s camp waves the olive branch
The Joe Ajaero faction of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has waved the olive branch, calling on the other faction for amicable resolution of the crisis.
Ajaero, who doubles as the General-Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), said the only option for resolution of the leadership crisis was through genuine discussions and negotiations, and not litigations.
According to him, he has always made himself available to give an account of what transpired, expressing the hope that the peace committee and that of the veterans would ensure a united NLC.
“I want peace in the NLC, but not the peace of the grave yard; I am ready for reconciliation and I will submit myself to any genuine reconciliatory move,” Ajaero said.
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NLC: Ajaero, Aremu ’re impostors
AYUBA Wabba’s faction of Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) yesterday said the activities of “Comrades Joe Ajaero and Issa Aremu are tantamount to impersonating the congress leadership”.
In a statement yesterday, the factional congress president, Wabba, claimed that the Ajaero and Aremu lost their elections on March 14.
He said: “While we had restrained the National Secretariat from publishing a disclaimer in the hope that commonsense and sanity will eventually prevail on our comrades to stop this delusion, it has become clear to us and the entire labour movement that Comrades Ajaero and Aremu are determined to continue in their criminal enterprise of impersonation as President and Deputy President of NLC.”
Wabba said it was for the same reason that Aremu had continued to issue statements purportedly on behalf of NLC and claiming to be its Deputy President.
He added that one of such statements, which was allegedly given wide publicity in four newspapers on Monday, contended that the decision of the National Assembly to voluntarily cut its budget from N150 billion to N120 billion was “too token and not far-reaching enough.”
The NLC boss noted that though the congress could not stop officials of their associations from commenting on national issues, no affiliate industrial union or their officers must issue statements in the name of the entire workers.
He added that to do that, such affiliate must be mandated by NLC.
“For the avoidance of doubt, on the issue of the budget of the National Assembly, which Aremu was reported to have issued a statement, we have since communicated our intention for constructively engage with the leadership of the National Assembly and are awaiting its response for a forum, where we intend to further unfold our agenda.
“We will similarly engage Mr. President on a range of national and labour specific issues, when we get to have an audience with him.
“As the foremost labour centre in Nigeria, we hold dear the principle and value of dialogue and engagement and will not be flippant as to irresponsibly hurl threats at our democratically constituted authorities, even before engaging them,” Wabba said.