Payment of salaries: Aviation unions write Buhari on need to avert crisis in industry
Aviation unions in the country have written an open letter to president Muhammadu Buhari on the need to avert crisis in the aviation industry as the agencies struggle to regularly pay workers salaries as a result of the stoppage of flights due to the coronavirus pandemic .
The unions which comprise of the National Union of Air Transport Employees, NUATE, Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, ATSSSAN, Association of Nigerian Aviation Professionals, ANAP and the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporation Civil Service Technical and Recreational Service Employees, AUPCTRE stated that they are compelled by the critical nature of their circumstances to alert the President of the unfolding dire situation in the aviation industry in Nigeria.
In a statement signed by comrade Ocheme Aba, general secretary of NUATE, comrade Frances Akinjole, deputy general secretary of ATSSSAN, comrade Abdul Rasaq Saidu, general secretary of ANAP and comrade Babatunde A. Omotola, for general secretary of AUPCTRE, the unions said the situation requires urgent attention and mitigation to avert a looming national crisis.
According them: “As you may be aware, it took commendable effort on the part of the management of Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to pay salaries for the month of May. The possibility of another such miracle for the month of June is rather bleak.
“At the same time, the management of of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA has informed its in house unions about its inability to continue to pay normal salaries. And as is well within public domain, most aviation companies have sent their workers home without salaries for months now, while some are paying only a fraction of salaries to workers on essential duties compelled to come to work.
“While the adverse socio-economic situation imposed by the covid-19 is an act of God, there can be little debate that workers have been dealt a larger portion of the burden to bear due to no fault of theirs. This burden has become exceedingly telling on the workers, and the cost has become unbearable. Our unions can no longer contain the wailings of our members; the aviation workers”.
The unions explained further that they are constrained to serve the notice should the situation of no salary, or incomplete salary, remain beyond the 15th of June, 2020, that the only option left for them will be to ask all aviation workers to remain at home pending when their salaries can be guaranteed.
The aviation bodies noted that this option will be inevitable as they are unable to justify the continuation of the present unfairness whereby the workers have to use their own meagre resources to finance their commune to and fro work under the very difficult covid-19 transportation challenges.
“We hope that you will understand our situation and direct that the needful be done in this circumstance,” the unions concluded in their statement.
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