NLC, ULC and TUC should intervene to end anti-labour practices at Sumal Foods, A&P Foods and others
PRESS STATEMENT
Following the persistent and various arrests, detentions and harassments by Oyo State Commissioner of Police and Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Zone 11 Command, Oshogbo, Comrade Abiodun Bamigboye (aka Abbey Trotsky) the acting National Chairperson of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN), was charged to a Magistrate Court in Ibadan Oyo State in the morning of Friday, June 7, 2019, on four-count trumped-up charges. The Police has manufactured those charges in an attempt to criminalize the strike action embarked by Sumal Foods Workers as well as the intervention of Abiodun Bamigboye who peacefully showed solidarity with the Sumal Foods workers in their struggle. He has been released on bail and the matter will come up for trial on July 11, 2019.
The background to this matter is the fact that contract workers at Sumal Foods Ltd at Ibadan in Oyo State who were about 15,000 in number went on strike on October 2, 2018, to protest their deplorable and poor working conditions. For instance, many workers have been working as contract staff for over a decade, earning a paltry sum of N800 per a day before the strike action and currently N1200 daily; contract workers are not entitled to break or rest intervals in violation of the Labour Act; contract workers are sacked arbitrarily; contract workers are not entitled to sick leave or annual leave and when a worker is absent from work for two days in a month over ill health, the worker gets sacked automatically, there are no entitlements for workers etc. It was these highlighted terrible working conditions and many more that provoked the strike action wherein Comrade Abiodun Bamigboye who is also the Oyo State Coordinator of the Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR) only intervened to give solidarity to the suffering Sumal Foods workers.
Unfortunately, the leadership of the National Union of Food, Beverages and Tobacco Employees (NUFBTE) has not only refused to challenge these anti-labour practices but have also aligned with Sumal Foods Ltd management to convert the workplace into a slave camp. Some workers claim that the key union (NUFBTE) leaders have vested interest in some of the 10 outsourcing companies that surreptitiously employ casual workers on behalf of the management for profit. This explains why they don’t fight against casualization and contract staffing but endorse it. Rather, they sponsor and support the harassment and persecution of workers and activists who fight casualization and other anti-labour practices. For instance, the trumped-up charges levelled against Comrade Bamigboye by the Police were at the instance of the management of Sumal Foods Ltd in connivance with the Food Union (NUFBTE).
Various managements in the food industry reportedly have a working agreement with the Food Union (NUFBTE) to outsource workers to allow management to dodge responsibility and to continue to enslave workers; on May 27, 2019, the same union mobilized thugs to invade A&P foods workplace in Lagos because workers resisted the imposition of handpicked branch leaders, injuring many workers and stole workers personal belongings.
The AIG of Police Zone 11, Oshogbo, Mr Leye Oyebade has vested interest in this matter while abandoning the obvious crimes committed by privileged crooks. This could be because when he was Oyo State Commissioner of Police, he was reportedly very close to the owners and management of Sumal Foods Ltd, Ibadan. The SPN questions a Police Force that refuses to arrest and prosecute management staff for enslaving Nigerians and flagrantly violating relevant sections of the Labour Act but was efficient in deploring the state resources to arrest, prosecute and persecute activists as dictated by the management and the union bureaucracy. This is a classic case of a state that is at the service of big business against Nigerian workers.
We want to publicly state that this persecution by the Police, Sumal Foods Ltd Management and the Union (NUFBTE) can never deter members of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) from intervening in struggles of workers anywhere in the country for decent working conditions.
We hereby call on the Nigeria Police Force to drop all trumped-up charges and commit itself to fighting crimes including crimes committed by privileged few and looters in government.
We call on Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), United Labour Congress (ULC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) to intervene in the labour crisis bedeviling workplaces, particularly on the widespread casualization and outsourcing policies perpetuated by management, as a means of defending workers interest.
SIGNED
Comrade Chinedu Bosah
National Secretary
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