NLC Pickets Furniture Firm Over Workers’ Conditions

Officials of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) were yesterday at the premises of Albert Furniture Factory at the Idu Industrial layout, Abuja to demand decent working conditions for its workers.

NLC national president, Comrade Ayuba Wabba who led workers in a procession to picket work places identified as being in incessant violation of workers’ rights in the factory said the company must implement social security and decent work conditions for all its employees.

The procession was part of the activities to mark the 2022 World Day for Decent Work.

According to the congress, over 200 workers were sacked by the company during Covid-19 pandemic and thereafter re-employed but on casual basis where they are being subjected to indecent working conditions.

Presenting a letter of demand to the company titled; “Victimisation, Intimidation and  Unfair Labour Practices Going on in Alibert Products Limited -Idu-Abuja” and received by the company’s human resources manager, Adio Shuaibu, the organised labour implored the management to act quickly to address the complains raised by workers.

The complains bordered on heavy casualisation of the workforce, denying workers their inalienable rights to unionise, hiring and firing workers at will and invitation of the police and traditional rulers to intimidate and harass workers.

Comrade Wabba said those complaints were fundamentally in breach of ILO Conventions 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise and Convention 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining and also Convention 190 on Workplace Violence and Harassment which Nigeria just ratified.

Part of the letter reads, “We urge your organisation to convene a meeting with the representatives of workers’ organisation in your workplace the National Union of Construction Engineering Civil Furniture and Wood Workers (NUCECFWW) to address this concern.  We also urge you to put in place measures to ensure that there is effective collective bargaining mechanism and industrial dispute processes in your organization.”