Labour directs Maritime workers to shut operations, begin nationwide strike Monday
By Emma Ogbuehi
Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, MWUN, has directed workers to shut down all operations of shipping companies and begin an indefinite nationwide strike from Monday over a lingering dispute with shipping companies concerning the poor pay package and welfare of employees.
At a briefing, Thursday, the President-General of MWUN, Prince Adewale Adeyanju, lamented that since 2018 Organised Labour had been battling with the shipping companies on the minimum standard for shipping companies on the welfare of workers to no avail.
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According to him, despite several ultimatums and interventions of the immediate past Minister of Transportation, Muazu Sambo, the Shipping companies, mostly multinationals, had refused to yield, expressing sadness that the working conditions of the workers in the nation’s shipping industry were nothing short of modern-day slavery.
Among the pending industrial issues include the refusal of the International Oil Companies, IOCs, to comply with Marine Notice 106 and extant Stevedoring regulations, refusal to pay aged seafarers monthly pensions in spite of court ruling, refusal to restore registered onboard ship gangway security and Tally men (pooling system), absence of Collective Bargaining Agreement, CBA, in Shipping sub-sector and refusal to issue Seafarers identity documents, SID, to seafarers.
Recall that MWUN had issued a 14-day ultimatum to the Federal Government and other concerned authorities effective Monday, March 6, to address the Union’s grievances, or face industrial unrest.
MWUN gave the notice to the then Ministers of Transportation, Muazu Sambo and his Labour and Employment counterpart, Senator Chris Ngige when the President of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Joe Ajaero, paid a working visit to the National Secretariat of MWUN, Lagos.