Chukwuemeke Iwelunmo
Following a long ranging trade dispute between the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and two aviation unions comprising Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN) and National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE),
the unions have vowed to declare a state of emergency in the agency by January 2nd next year, if their demands for staff promotion are not met.
The unions disclosed their plans at the weekend in Lagos, claiming that the management of NCAA has taken them for granted with regards to the issues of promotion of NCAA staff.
Speaking on the issue, Comrade Lucky Izebhokun Chairman Joint Action Committee, NCAA and chairman NUATE, NCAA branch made it clear that NCAA management would be looking for trouble if they do not promote the staff of NCAA by the end of this year.
Comrade Izebhokun who hinted that the anxiety is so high while a lot of people have been highly discouraged in the system, said that there is the possibility that the aggrieved workers would pour out their mind on January 2, 2019.
Izebhokun said “now the Management has so much relegated the staff of NCAA so much so that they will be employing, doing secondment and transfer of people from other organizations to come and boss us, we have had issues with people being transferred from NAMA especially,
because there is no promotion in NCAA, you will see now bossing the people in NCAA, we have told Management that we can no longer accept that”.
“We wrote them, we have to do due diligence, we wrote them and told that within the next three weeks if you do not give our people promotion, we are talking about promotion from level 14 to 15 and 16 that is senior management cadre,
if you don’t promote them there will be serious issues”, the union leader added.
He said if the union fails to curtail this excess for this senior cadre, it will start spiraling down to the lower cadre, and time may come when they will be no vacancy for levels 12, 13.
Stating that the union had written NCAA management on the issue without any response, Izebhokun queried how other parastatals in the aviation industry are getting their promotion.
Just as he suggested to NCAA staff to pass a vote of no confidence on the leadership of NCAA come 2nd of January 2019.
