Lucky Obukohwo, Reporting
The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has said that the management of Dangote Petrochemical Refinery has violated the rights of the over 800 Nigerians workers laid off by the company, therefore, it should apologize to them.
The union’s Secretary General, Nuhu Toro disclosed this while reacting to the ranging crisis between the refinery and the Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN).
According to Toro, “The Dangote and PENGASSAN rift concerns the TUC because PENGASSAN is an affiliate of the TUC, and there is no way they can beat your child, and the father stays aloof.
“Even the last meeting that was held on the 8th of September at the Ministry of Labour office, both PENGASSAN and the TUC were represented.
“We demand the reversal of the arbitrary dismissal of over 800 workers by Dangote. If that is done, the next thing that we demand is a public apology from the Dangote Refinery Management, with an assurance that such won’t be used against the union in the future.
“In some of the commentaries flying around, Dangote has refused to address the substantial matter here, which is the violation of workers’ right to belong to any union of their choice.
“What Dangote simply did was to give us a bad name. The first thing he did was to violate the agreement we both signed, arising from the previous intervention, that no worker was going to be victimised.
“Unionisation is a right, and workers in Dangote have the right to belong to a union of their choice. In these circumstances, the workers have indicated that they want to belong to PENGASSAN, and they signed our forms.
“For Dangote to react, he has to hide under the guise of sabotage, which is debatable in my opinion, because by the time you say sabotage, you must be able to substantiate and provide evidence of who who are sabotaging,” Toro added.