Workers Give NAMA till 28th Feb. to Clear Outstanding Debts or Risk Total Strike
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A Control Tower, with Aircraft On Display
The entire workforce of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, has expressed their indignation to the agency’s management for denying them their rights, priviledges, and by extension withholding, every means to get them motivated in their onerous work schedules hence, the management has been given ultimatum until 28th February 2021, to pay all the outstanding entitlements owed the workers or risk a total strike.
The agency workers at their congress yesterday, Monday, 25th January 2021, which had in attendance representative of the Managing Director, Capt Folayele Akinkuotu, in the person of the Director of Operations, Mr Pwajok Mathew Lawrence, Director of Finance and Accounts MR UMOH ANIEFIOK, General Manager Human Resources, and the Deputy General Manager, (IR), enumerated the untold hardships the inability of management to honour its obligations to the workers had cost the staff individually and collectively.
NAMA workers’ congress rose at their meeting with a very strong six points demands for the management to urgently respond by raising the fund to settle the various outstanding of workers such as the payment of the year 2020 productivity allowance- the 13th-month salary.
Congress also demanded the immediate commencement of payment of the accrued pensions for the Senior citizens. The third on the unanimous demand by the congress was the immediate payment of the furniture grant.
The congress lamented on the low premium the agency’s management placed on the health of its workers which they said reflected in the management’s inability to get its workforce on the National Health Insurance Scheme, NHIS.
They also lamented that work done, such as various official trips made and numerous other claims should be attended with dispatch as continuing denial will tantamount to strangulation of the workers whose commitment enabled the agency to still provide safe, prompt and economical air navigation services to the airlines and other consumers.
Unions leaderships present were the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations Civil Service Technical And Recreational Employees, AUPCTRE, Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, ATSSSAN, National Union of Air Transport Employees, NUATE, and the Association of Nigeria Aviation Professionals, ANAP.
The congress agreed the condition of service had taken too long a time to ratify and release for use by both the employer and the employees. Congress reasoned that with the condition of service in place, no employee in any arm and at any cadre could feign ignorance of the obligations demanded of him/her.
The octopus of all the workers demand according to the Secretary-General of ANAP, Comrade AbdulRazaq Seidu, was the “workers condition of service.
He said if the condition of service was released a lot of issues would naturally take their courses without any hues and cries from any quarter as both parties, would have been appropriately guided and friction would have been drastically reduced if not eliminated.
Comrade Seidu argued that as long as the document- condition of service – is kept in the cooler, so long would altercation persists between the management and the workers.
He, however, urged NAMA’s management to engage its supervisory ministry, aviation ministry, so as to find ways and means to settle its financial obligation to the workers so as not to bring about a cog in the wheel of the agency and its huge potential to disrupt the entire air transport operations which the union itself abhors.
Comrade AbdulRazaq berated the sense of judgement of the aviation ministry leadership which forced all the agencies to relocate their head office to Abuja at the most dangerous period in the history of mankind.
He bemoaned the failure by the leadership of the ministry which took the decision not to have considered the safety of the workers while relocating at the hit of the COVID-19 scourge last year 2020.
He also lamented the military nature of the relocation order which came in a democratic setting hence saying he was not surprised that no consideration for the workers’ wellbeing was in that decision as it is now evident in the high debt portfolio of NAMA especially to the workers.
Comrade Seidu wondered where the money for the relocation came from as it was not in the year 2020 appropriation yet it was accomplished but the geese that laid the golden egg is expected to be perpetual denial he described as most unfair from the standpoint of man and that of almighty Allah
The ANAP Secretary-General, however, expressed optimism that the minister and NAMA’s management would not want to be liable for workers’ strike if they failed again, to give workers their dues as yesterday’s congress had reasonably demanded.
Also in attendance at the congress were the leaderships of all professional associations in the agency which included, Nigerian Air Traffic Controllers’ Association, NATCA, National Aeronautical Communications Association of Nigeria, NACAN, Aeronautic Information Service Association of Nigeria, AISAN, Aeronautic Electronic Engineering Association, National Association of Air Traffic Engineers, NAATE, among others
PRAYER OF WORKERS TO NAMA MANAGEMENT
- The release of jointly agreed Condition of Service
- Payment of the year 2020 Productivity Allowance- 13th Month
- Outstanding Staff Claims
- Immediate Commencement of payment of Accrued Pension
- Furniture Grant
- National Health Insurance Scheme, NHIS.
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