The Food, Beverage and Tobacco Senior Staff Association (FOBTOB) has tasked the Ministry of Labour and Employment to urgently wade into massive redundancy going on in the sector and save the jobs of their members.
The union lamented that while it was battling with negotiations on redundancy and unwholesome practices by employers who were terminating members’ appointments without due process, witch-hunting has been the order of the day.
President of the union, Quadri Olaleye, during the inauguration of FOBTOB Hostel Project 3, a standard 42-room hostel for students at the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State, at the weekend, said the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with unavailability of foreign exchange, low sales, high cost of production, border closure for over a year and difficult operating environment had brought about redundancy in the sector, as employers could no longer cope with demands of the workforce.
Olaleye, however, said the union had also been negotiating with the employers to ensure the number of people that would be affected in retrenchment is minimal.
He said the union has also ensured that organisations carrying out redundancy pay the affected workers their benefits, in line with the constitution and enterprise agreement.
He said, “For now, I have more than five companies that sent letters to us that they want to carry out redundancy and we have started negotiations. I also have a lot of witch-hunting cases. We are battling with that and, if necessary, we are going to call the attention of the Ministry of Labour to intervene.
“Our employers complain that forex is not available because production has gone up and the operational environment is so difficult that they cannot sell their products, coupled with the fact that the border has been closed more than a year now, which is affecting sale of products. As a result of that they said they need to shed their weight on the number of employees.”
Prior to the launching of the hostel, the union, which also had its Central Working Committee (CWC) and National Executive Council (NEC) meetings, implored the Federal Government to urgently address the issue of corruption, pointing that it has eaten deep into governance system of the present administration.
Olaleye, who is also the president of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), maintained that corruption was the only problem Nigeria had and has taken away the joy of the citizenry.
The FOBTOB boss, who urged President Muhammadu Buhari and the three arms of government to take the issue of anti-corruption fight seriously, demanded that the judiciary system should be reformed.
He added that, “if the judiciary appropriates punishment to whoever commits corruption, by now corruption should be a thing of the past. We know we cannot bring it to zero, but, at least, let us fight it to a reasonable level. We plead with the Federal Government to work seriously to carry out forensic audits on the cases of NDDC, NCDC, NSITF and the rest of these agencies to restore Nigerian’s confidence.”
On ways of cushioning the effects of the current health pandemic on Nigerian workers in the area of housing, Olaleye stated organised labour has just signed an agreement with the Federal Government to provide low-cost housing for workers, possibly in all states of the federation. He said the housing initiative is in conjunction with the Ministry of Housing, noting that it is different from that of Federal Mortgage Bank.
In his remark, representative of the Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, Senior Special Assistant on Labour, Oluyemi Esan, restated the governor’s commitment to workers’ welfare and pledged to partner with the union on developmental projects.
