NLC pickets Lebanese firm over alleged maltreatment of workers

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has picketed a Lebanese company, Al Mansour Engineering company and two of its construction sites in Lagos State for alleged inhuman treatment of workers.

The NLC in conjunction with the National Union of Civil Engineering Construction, Furniture and Wood Workers (NUCECFWW) accused the company of maltreating their Nigerian employees contrary to the nation’s labour laws.

The demonstration was led by Head of NLC office, Lagos, Onemolease Wilson. While picketing, the NLC protesters displayed several placards with inscriptions such as :’No to racial discrimination’, ‘Workers must be allowed to organise and be organised’, ‘Union rights are fundamental rights’, ‘Responsible corporate organisations respect the statutory agreement with social partners’ and ‘Stop treating workers like slaves.’

Speaking to The Guardian, Wilson said: “The agreement had been reached and the management reneged on the agreement. We discovered that workers’ welfare is too poor. We have the right to negotiate their fate and that is why we are here. There were a lot of entreaties over time to make them implement the agreement.

“We have been to two of their working sites and we asked the workers to down tools. Some of us are in Apapa where they are building a tank farm, and we have told the management that they cannot come to Nigeria to impoverish our brothers and sisters.”

The General Secretary of NUCECFWW, Mr. Ibrahim Walama, lamented that the company had refused to honour an agreement and workers have come to ensure that workers’ rights are respected.

He said: “There’s a lot of unfair labour practice around the site, safety standards are not followed and the workers’ condition of service is nothing to write home about. I was at their site in Ikoyi and Banana Island and the workers were sleeping in such a dehumanising condition.

“All efforts to get the workers organised into a union to have a voice have failed because the employers are caging the workers and that is unacceptable.

“It is the right of workers and as leaders, we have a duty to enforce that if the employers are saying no. Some of the workers may also be afraid because work is not easy to come by in Nigeria.”