Airports across the country are to be shut down on Monday as the two leading unions in the sector yesterday threatened to shut down Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA by midnight on Sunday.
The unions, National Union of Air Transport Employees, NUATE, and National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers, NAAPE, in a letter dated 21st October, 2015 to their members and made available to our correspondent accused NCAA of not adhering to the condition of service with respect to promotion of workers and other welfare issues.
The letter jointly signed by Secretary General, NUATE and Secretary General NAAPE, Comrades Olayinka Abioye and Aba Ocheme threatened to shut down the agency from midnight Sunday until further notice.
The unions insisted that the withdrawal of service by the workers became paramount in order to safeguard the integrity of NCAA’s condition of service.
The unions noted that the action of the Director- General of NCAA, Capt. Muhtar Usman was in violation of section 3.4 of condition of service, adding that all efforts to discuss with the management had been futile.
The letter added, “By the copy of this notice, the general public is hereby informed of this development and the implications that all safety regulations activities of the NCAA will be unavailable from that time and date. “The above notice will remain in force until otherwise directed by the secretariat of our unions.”
It would be recalled that the unions had sometime last month issued a 14-day ultimatum to the management of NCAA to effect promotion of workers in line with their terms of engagements or face its wrath.
The unions had accused NCAA management of dillydallying with the promotion of its members, which was due since January 2015. In an interview with our correspondent, Abioye confirmed the withdrawal of service by midnight of Sunday.
He described the attitude of the management towards the welfare of workers as “nonchalant.” Abioye said those who were due for promotion ought to have faced an interview panel and issued promotion letters if they were successful, but accused the management of trying to reinvent the wheels by setting examinations for them.
He said: “The management of NCAA has been playing some pranks so to speak because ordinarily, people who are due for promotion ought to have received their letters since January or thereabout, but as we speak those letters are not forthcoming.
“The management is trying to introduce a new policy that is not known to the condition of service, which is that they said the ministry of aviation directed them to conduct an examination.
“This is not the conditions and terms of employment of these individuals and we gave them till 30th September, 2015 to effect that.”
He noted that the unions before its congress at NCAA headquarters recently in Lagos, had held similar congresses in Kaduna, Kano, Port Harcourt and Abuja Airports where it was resolved that the unions should give the management till 14th October, 2015, which lapsed over a week ago.
Abioye urged the management of NCAA to respect the terms and conditions of employment as contained in the condition of service, which all parties entered into.
“We are going to take all lawful and legal steps to ensure that we do what we have capacity and capability to do, which the last resort will be a strike because we are tired of impunity of the NCAA management,” he added. – National Mirror.
