NECA Faults Picketing Of Power Company Workers

The umbrella body for the organised private sector, the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has faulted the picketing of Jos Electricity Distribution Company.

The Director General of NECA, Olusegun Osinowo, told reporters in Lagos on Saturday that the action of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) was a ‘wanton display of impunity in the name of industrial actions’.

The National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) in collaboration with the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) had made good its threat against electricity distribution companies across the country when its members forcefully closed the Jos section of the distribution company on March 31.

Dangerous Dimension

The union had also vowed to clamp down on the other nine distribution companies over alleged “anti-labour issues” and unpaid severance benefits.

NECA, however, described the move as “illegal and a dangerous dimension” in the ongoing reform programme in the power sector.

The Director General of NECA said the country had credible institutions and law that had been well articulated for managing whatever grievance or dispute a union or employer had.

“The way to go is not the way of impunity, picketing or strike and if this is not nipped in the bud, it might as well lead to a bigger crisis for this country giving the importance of the electricity sector to the development of Nigeria. I appeal to the Union to follow the laid down procedure for resolving disputes in Nigeria.

“Those institutions are credible and they will do justice to whatever issues the union brings to them,” the NECA head said.

He called on the union to follow the laid down procedures of resolving industrial disputes in Nigeria and also asked the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity and its counterpart in the Ministry of Power to set up a platform for dialogue in order to look at the issues at stake.