OVER three years after the National Minimum Wage Act was passed into law, Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, is yet to implement the N18.000 minimum wage for workers of Labour City Transport Service, LCTS.
Not only that, Vanguard investigation revealed that NLC has refused to sanction a condition of service for the workers who have been exposed to unfair practices that labour has been waging war against.
Recall that Vanguard in August reported that the workers were being owed seven months (now eight months) salary arrears thereby inflicting untold hardship and suffering on the workers.
Efforts to speak with the management of the company including the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mr. Kiri Mohammed, yielded no result.
When Vanguard called Mr. Mohammed on his phone, he claimed he did not know anything about the issue, because it was not long he became the Board Chairman, adding that he was making sure that the new buses NLC bought were rolled out.
However, Vanguard gathered that efforts by the workers through the umbrella union, the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, including several letters were rebuffed.
Vanguard findings revealed that a resemblance of a condition of service for the workers prepared in 2009 under the management of LCTS led Owei Lakemfa, now Secretary General of Organisation of African Trade Union Unity, OATUU, was never implemented.
BY VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG
In January 2012, the workers wrote to the Chairman of the LCTS Board of Directors, detailing workers proposal for a stillbirth review of un-implemented 2009 condition of service was never attended to.
An official of Lagos State chapter of NURTW told Vanguard that several letters to the management of LCTS as well as informal discussions with the management over the minimum wage yielded no positive result, lamenting that “it is scandalous and insulting to the ear that NLC has not implemented the N18.000 minimum wage for its workers (LCTS). It will be a bad publicity for the congress. But the truth has to be told.”
According to the 2010 letter to the Chairman of Board of Directors of LCTS, some of the concerns of the workers were the issues of gratuity and its calculation, leave period and allowance. Medical facilities, canteen facilities, recreation facilities, accident prevention and long service award among others.
The last the time the issue of condition of service was discussed, Vanguard gathered that during management and union meeting of 03/02/12, the Managing Director said it was germane that the Company had a condition of service that was comprehensive and acceptable to the workers.
Subsequently, the Managing Director was said to have constituted a five man committee to fashion out a detail condition of service for the workers and the committee was given two weeks to submit its reports.
Source: Vanguard
