Airlines, workers in fresh row over unionism, labour rights

The local aviation sector is warming up for another round of disruption over workers’ rights to unionism and other labour entitlements in airline organisations.

While the workers are miffed at their employers’ aversion to unionism and have threatened to picket such airlines, the operators are insisting that such actions contravene extant provisions of the Civil Aviation Act 2023 and are unhealthy for an industry on its knees.

It will be recalled that labour protests and attendant disruption of scheduled flight services have always been a sticky subject between airline operators and aviation workers’ unions.

In lieu of the incalculable damage it does to airlines’ operation, customers and the industry at large, the last administration technically banned picketing in the air transport sector, by designating aviation as an essential service.

Specifically, under “the designation of essential services”, Section 29 (1) of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Act 2023, “All services which facilitate and maintain the smooth, orderly and safe take-off, flight and landing of aircraft, embarkation and disembarkation and evacuation of passengers and cargo respectively in all aerodromes in Nigeria are hereby designated as essential services pursuant to the provisions of Section 11(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as altered).

Section 29 (2) of the Act adds: “The minister may, by regulations, prohibit all or such class or classes of workers, officers and other employees or persons, whether corporate or natural, engaged in the provision of services specified in subsection (1) of this section from taking part in a strike or other industrial action.”

For clarity, “The provisions of the Trade Disputes (Essential Services) Act, Cap. T9, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 shall apply to service in the agency, facilities managed by the agency and in the implementation of this bill. There shall be no strikes, lock-outs, pickets, blockades, service disruptions, etc. of any kind within all facilities managed by the agency and where any labour dispute arises, such dispute shall be resolved by the agency.”

Nonetheless, the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) said plans were on the way to picket offices of airlines operating that have prevented their staff from joining trade unions of their choice.

NUATE said some airlines are breaking and violating labour laws, by hinging employment conditioned on anti-trade unionism and threatening to sack workers, who dire to align with unions.

National President of NUATE, Ben Nnabue, said they had the backing of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) to put the operators in check.

He said at the last global labour unions conference held in Singapore, it was observed that a lot of organisations are not unionized, hence the mandate “to ensure that slave labour is eliminated on the African continent”.

Nnabue said: “In Nigeria, we have come to terms with the reality that the majority of our domestic airlines don’t want their workers to join unions while some have allowed their staff to unionise. Others at the point of entrance warned their staff against joining any trade union of their choice.

“We have been on this for the past five years. We have reported to the Ministers of labour and aviation. All of them have been promising us that something will be done but you can’t be following up a project for five years and not achieve anything.”

He warned that airlines have the final opportunity to correct the anti-labour acts or face legal sanctions.

NUATE General Secretary, Ocheme Aba, added that it would be in the good interest of airlines and organisations in the aviation sector to allow their workers to join the labour unions, adding that no unionised airline in Nigeria has ever failed.

Chief Operating Officer of an airline said the aviation law abhors such “unruly” conduct and the unions should find a better means of achieving their goals without killing the industry.

“I understand that the unions already have their targets, and not all the airlines. Now, how do they hope to picket one airline or an airport without infringing on the rights of other operators and the general public?

“We have been at this junction many times. I hope these unions would still have an industry and operators in place by the time they have all they want,” he said.