Sequel to their protest last week over the refusal of their employers to review the expired bi-yearly collective agreement on salaries and fringe benefits, the Food, Beverage and Tobacco Senior Staff Association (FOBTOB) has begun an indefinite strike.
A meeting was held on December 8 between members of FOBTOB and their employers, Association of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employers (AFBTE), to reconcile.
FOBTOB had earlier called for the upward review of their salary by 20 per cent as against the current 14 per cent, which, according to them, is the lowest rate in the past 17 years.
In a statement signed by FOBTOB National President Comrade Quadri Olaleye, the union said: “With the majority of our employers being multinationals such as Flour Mills of Nigeria, Guinness Nigeria Plc, A & P Pladis Foods, FrieslandCampina WAMCO, Ajinomoto, Deli Foods, Dangote Industries, Nestle, Cadbury Nigeria, Dufil Prima Indomie, among others, it is unacceptable to us that they continue to discriminate against our members in the payment of salaries and fringe benefits after having met their targets and remained profitable.
“It is on record that throughout our industry, all other cadres have in the past months enjoyed a review in their salaries and fringe benefits while the Senior Staff and Managers have been tactically abandoned.
“To this effect, we are calling all our members nationwide to embark on a national strike action to compel the AFBTE to reach an equally acceptable agreement from December 11, 2017 as from 12am prompt.”
Meanwhile, the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) has condemned outrightly AFBTE members’ decision to deny a reasonable increment of 20 per cent in the ongoing negotiation between the employers’ body and FOBTOB members at the National Joint Industrial Council (NJIC).
The congress in a statement by its President, Comrade Bobboi Kaigama, was worried that this long overdue increment cum benefit, which is clearly affordable within the industry and has in fact, already been awarded to the junior staff could now be allowed to degenerate into a nationwide strike at this critical festive period when products of the industry would be in higher demand.
He said: “Increasing the wages of the junior staff to the extent that they (junior staff) now prefer not to be promoted to management level for us is a deliberate attempt to spite our members and it further speaks volume of the injustice in the system.
“We are equally concerned about the posture of the representatives of the employers at the NJIC negotiations. It appears the NJIC was deliberately constituted to spite the senior staff. Any act to diminish the dignity of our members is unacceptable.”
