By Bimbola Oyesola
Dockworkers operating in the ports across the country have received a boost in their salaries and retirement benefits as the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) and members of the Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN) signed a new collective bargaining agreement to further enhance the welfare of dockworkers in a move would lead to an increase in the wages, allowances and retirement benefits payable to the dockworkers. The new agreement would be operational for three years.
The latest collective bargaining agreement was signed on Thursday at the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) headquarters in Lagos.
Chairman of STOAN, Princess Vicky Haastrup, who led other members of STOAN to sign the agreement with the union, noted that terminal operators have ensured industrial harmony at the seaports since 2006 by prioritising the welfare of dockworkers.
She said, “We are happy as employers of labour to give the dockworkers the wages they rightly deserve. It is always our joy to bring succour and joy into the hearts of our workers.
“Before the 2006 port concession, the monthly income of an average dockworker was less than N5,000 but today, we make bold to say that we now pay our dockworkers very well. Our dockworkers are now well respected and well compensated for the work they do. This is because we acknowledge dockworkers as the bedrock of port operations.
“Before we became their employers, dockworkers were not respected. They were seen as troublemakers and thugs at the ports. But today, we have worked together with the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria to change the narrative.”
She stated that dockworkers were professional quayside essential workers who were vital to port operations.
“I am proud to say that the present crop of dockworkers at the various ports across the country are well trained and they conduct themselves professionally,” she said.
President-general of MWUN, Adewale Adeyanju commended the Federal Government for concessioning the ports to private terminal operators.
Adeyanju said the port concession programme has impacted positively on the lives of port workers through the improved welfare package instituted by terminal operators.
According to him, prior to the port concession in 2006, the wages of dockworkers were “nothing to write home about” but all that has changed since the concessionaires (terminal operators) took over.
He said, “The era of using dockworkers as slaves in their fatherland no longer exists. We want to thank the Federal Government for concessioning the ports because that reform has changed the lives of dockworkers all over the nation’s seaports.
“In those days, an average dockworker that worked for eights hours a day would go home with N4,000 at the end of the month. We used to have stevedoring contractors, but they did not care about the welfare of the workers. Some of the stevedoring contractors even ran away with the pensions of dockworkers.
“But since the terminal operators came in, we have seen the difference between the stevedoring contractors of those days and the terminal operators of today.”