The Maritime Workers’ Union of Nigeria (MWUN) is set for a showdown with Temile Development Company Nigeria Limited over the refusal of the firm to allow maritime workers on its payroll to unionize.
The firm which is situated at 2, Omedu Street, Rumueme, Port Harcourt, Rivers State have not been able to reach a decision on the need to allow the workers to unionize, a development MWUN which has Comrade Francis Bunu as its President General in collaboration with Nigerian Merchant Navy Officers and Water Transport Senior Staff Association (NMNO-WTSSA) have vowed to resist.
Maritime Bits checks revealed that MWUN had severally written letters of unionization to the firm to no avail.
The firm was said to have defiantly refused to respond to MWUN and NMNO-WTSSA) just as it called the bluff of the two unions.
Bunu was quoted saying in a statement issued in Lagos that no company in Nigeria or in any part of this world is bigger than the labour unions, affiliate bodies and its governing laws in all ramifications, particularly when it entails the enslavement of workers in today’s labour world, where casualization of workers has been prohibited.
According to the President General, not in Nigeria would such barbaric act or practice can exist or work. Casualization of workers has become a thing of the past and it is no longer in vogue. Therefore, any employer of labour who still indulge in such archaic practice of casualization of workers will be thoroughly dealt with.
He averred that humans can no longer be hired for peanuts or cheap labour in guise of giving them employment.
Apparently not pleased with the development, Bunu declared that such labour laws violators will be severely dealt with accordingly.
The Ijaw born labour activist and astute maritime labour administrator warned that the management of the firm must respond to all the letters sent to them by the unions and a date fixed for a joint meeting within a 21-day ultimatum of this publication or face the wrath of the union.
