Electricity Union Pickets Colleagues In Ilorin

Members of the National Union of Electricity Employees in Kwara State has embarked on picketing of the offices of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company for lack of implementation of agreements reached with the buyers of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria and retrenching of their labour leaders among other demands.

The labour leaders in collaboration with the state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) prevented staff from gaining access into their place of work and threaten to prevent customers from paying their bills if their demands were not met within a week.

The leaders of the National Union of Electricity Employees in conjunction with the NLC sang Labour songs to press home their demands.

They accused the new owner of the company of victimisation of their Labour leaders which include retrenchment, non-payment of full severance allowance and provision of erratic power supply.

The state chairman of the National Union of Electricity Employees, Bamidele Kogbe, noted that several meetings held with the management in 14 states did not yield results as they only promised without fulfilling.

Not allowing the staff to unionise and non-payment of the severance allowance has resulted in many deaths of their members.

The union leaders noted that if the one week picketing did not yield positive result, they will have no option than to prevent customers from paying electricity bills.