NLC Pickets Abuja Construction Firm Over Alleged Anti-labour Practices

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in conjunction with National Union of Civil Engineering Construction Furniture and Wood Workers (NUCECFWW) on Wednesday picketed Wizchino Engineering Company Limited in Abuja over complaints ranging from poor welfare to anti-union practices.

They also accused the management of denying workers fundamental right to belong to trade unions of their choice and subjecting them to slave labour conditions.

The aggrieved workers who arrived the premises of the firm in company of top officials of NLC blocked the entrance chanting solidarity songs with placards thereby stalling normal activities.

Addressing journalists during picketing, National President of NUCECFWW, Comrade Stephen Okoro, said the company has refused to recognise trade union activities and obey conditions of service for construction industry.

“We are here in respect of our workers in Wizchino, popularly known as WE. They have been doing series of work in various places in all parts of country. In Delta State they refused to support trade union activity and we picketed them and we organised them,” Okoro said.

He said after picketing in Delta, the company complied with National Joint Industrial Council (NJIC) conditions and allowed union leaders, but the Abuja office has continued to flout law.

According to him, the union wrote several letters and visited the company severally but the management ignored correspondence and at times chased workers with mobile police.

“We have written letters, copied many agencies, but they refused. They will ignore our letters. Sometimes they will chase us out with mobile police, intimidating Nigerian workers. There is need for us to sit down around table. Let them obey the condition of service made for construction workers as enshrined by law,” he said.

Okoro alleged the company lacks basic safety and welfare provisions, leading to death of two workers.

“We lost about two workers here. Because there is no health care. They don’t have a clinic. No registered clinic that a worker can run to in case of emergency. You can hardly see safety shoes, no helmet, no hand gloves. You can’t be working like this in the construction industry,” he said.

He said the firm collects major government contracts without considering workers welfare.

“They are collecting major contract from government. And you can’t collect such contract without first considering that workers have welfare,” he said.

Okoro said construction workers have right to freedom of association and to belong to NUCECFWW as an affiliate of NLC, stressing he will not watch members suffer without a condition of service.

The union leader said the picketing will continue until the company agrees to dialogue and implements NJIC conditions applicable to all construction workers in Nigeria

“If they are not ready to discuss with us, we will continue to stay here till tomorrow. We will not shift until the right thing is done,” he said, adding that without formal condition of service, families of deceased workers cannot get compensation as company denies employment relationship”.

None of the company officials showed up to respond to the allegations leveled by the workers.