The Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN) has declared a trade dispute with the management of Aerocontractors company over the latter's threat to sack some of the union's members in an action termed as rightsizing.

The dispute is in accordance with section 4 of the trade disputes Decree, 1976.
In a letter to the airline operators dated April 28, 2008 and signed by ATSSSAN acting Secretary General, Sunny Aiyede, the union said no resolution has been reached between them in spite of several letters and meetings held to address workers plight.

According to Aiyede the management of Aerocontractors has gone ahead and insisted on carrying out what it called "rightsizing exercise" and not redundancy._The letter reads "ATSSSAN hereby give notice that a trade dispute has been declared between the said ATSSSAN and Aerocontractors companies of Nigeria over refusal of the management to discuss/negotiate redundancy and redundancy benefits."
The president of the association Benjamin Okewu in an interview said Aero agreed in the past two months that the company was carrying out rightsizing of organisation for improved service delivery and profit actualization since the company was going down in its profit base.

Okewu said the union welcomed the decision on the agreement that rightsizing will not affect the sacking of workers which Aero management agreed. He said several meetings were held when it was agreed that issues like overtime and costs cuts were reached between them only for Aero management to turn back and decided to retrench and_rightsize.

He further stressed that the disengagement letters have started going out to the workers and the management claimed it was the board's decision.

"When a trade dispute is declared it means that everybody should maintain the status quo, they should stop distributing letter. We are meeting with minister of labour and aviation today in Abuja".
Okewu said at the end ATSSSAN will be compelled to use all the machineries at their disposal by mobilizing all their branches to stampede the operations of Aero contractors.