The five South-East States would be heading for a total blackout as from the next 21 days over unresolved welfare issues affecting workers in the area.
The five South-East States would be heading for a total blackout as from the next 21 days over unresolved welfare issues affecting workers in the area.
The threat was issued on Tuesday by members of the Trade Union Congress, TUC, South-East zone at a press briefing in Enugu.
The group spoke shortly after its special meeting, vowing to embark on a “mother-of-all” industrial action at the expiration of its 21-day ultimatum to the management of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, EEDC.
Comrade Chukwuma Igbokwe, the coordinator of TUC in the South-East, who spoke on behalf of the group said, “we are not happy with the way the EEDC is treating workers; it is not the first company to be privatized; they are not practicing the required industrial relations, it is almost zero; we have decided to take it up at our own level, we cannot continue to watch our members treated as slaves.
“We have series of issues with the EEDC, union activity in EEDC is almost going dead; in the standard labour practice, even in ILO convention, workers are allowed to participate in unions but here, via a circular, they instructed that workers should only meet after close of work, apart from the fact that we should only meet after close of work, that they should give them two weeks notice before holding their meeting, that is also against labour practice. We are demanding that workers should be allowed to hold their meeting.
“Again workers are being given option to opt out of union, that we are also against; the last disengagement was targeted at all the union officials and we have written to them to say this looks like victimization; if you think that the only way to flush out union is by sacking their leaders and encouraging people to opt out of union, it is not very fair at all. They should re-engage the disengaged labour leaders”.
Igbokwe outlined other contentious issues to include “lots of arreas, ranging from leave allowance, transfer claims; people are transferred indiscriminately, without claims, we are saying that this is not fair.
“We also met over the casualization, in fact in EEDC, for the past one year, nobody has been confirmed, all the people employed for over one year no confirmation, it appears like everybody is a contract staff, and you know that it means. This people’s appointment has to be confirmed, they should be adequately remunerated, right now, there is indiscriminate remuneration; up till now we have not come up with standard scheme of service from the EEDC, so those workers are treated as slaves“.
The labour leader who said all peaceful moves by the workers had been futile, stressing “we have, therefore, taken a resolution because we have given them letters for us to meet and resolve the issues but these letters did not get any attention.
“So, at our level today, we have decided that every chairman and secretary in the different states should go back to their various states and begin to mobilize; we are going to close down the EEDC because I think this is the only option that will make them listen to the demands of the workers.
“We have tried dialogue but it has failed; the only option left for us is to mobilize from the whole South-East states and come and close down that place. EEDC is not labour friendly, workers there are suffering. We are giving them just another three weeks, 21-days ultimatum to resolve this issues, failure which we will embark on very serious industrial action”.
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