Bimbola Oyesola

More troubles seem to be lieing ahead for the management of Nycil Chemical Company in Sango Ota, Ogun State with the resolve of Nigeria’s Organised Labour to press for compensation for a worker who died on duty during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

The unions including  the National Union of Chemical Footwear Rubber Leather and Non Metallic Products Employees (NUCFRLANMPE) and Chemical and Non Metallic Products Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (CANMPSSAN), said the management failed to acknowledge nor show sympathy to the family of the casual worker,  Saka Haruna, who lost his life while on active duty.

The workers have been picketing the company since the management locked them out last Monday over planned retrenchment without negotiation.

Addressing the media on the ongoing  picketing yesterday in Sango Ota, President of NUCFRLANMPE, Goke Olatunji, who is also the National Auditor of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and his counterpart in CANMPSSAN, Segun David, vowed that they would ensure justice for the dead worker.

The late Haruna, who hailed from Edo State was reported to have been killed in an accident that occurred at the Sango Ota Tollgate in Ogun State.

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Olatunji said the young casual was among the employees the management had forced to work for 48 hours continously during the COVID-19 lockdown by the Federal Government.

He said, “He had left the company after getting some stipend, to give N3,500 to his family so that they can eat during the lockdown. He called the wife to meet him at the Tollgate to give her the money, but he was killed in an accident, he never made it back to work.

“The unfortunate thing is that the management did not send condolences to the family, nor observed a minute silence for the dead worker.”

He stated that the unions do not discriminate between casuals and permanent workers, assuring the embattled workers that the leadership would ensure that the family of the deceased gets what is due to them.

Olatunji lamented that Federal Government would have to come to the aid of the workers who have been subjected to series of humiliation and anti -labour policies by the chairman of the company, Adetola Adebayo, since he bought the company in 2014.