NLC pickets electricity companies over non payment of entitlements
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) yesterday embarked on picketing of all electricity distribution companies in Kogi, Osun, Oyo, Edo, Ekiti, Edo and Delta States among others over non-payment of entitlements to disengaged staff of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
The nationwide picketing, Daily Trust gathered, is to protest the alleged breach of agreement in the sale of the defunct PHCN to investors.
Chairman of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Kwara State, Comrade Faruq Umar, in an interview with newsmen in Ilorin, said a number of agreements signed prior to the handing over of the distribution companies had been breached.
And in Ekiti State, activities were paralysed at the office of Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) as the disengaged workers protested non-payment of their pension arrears and other benefits.
The protesters, led by the state chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Ayodeji Aluko, locked the main gate to the office.
Aluko accused the new investor of denying the ex-workers their rights and also reneging on earlier promises to pay them.
The NLC boss threatened that the picketing would last for three days, after which the body will review its tactics.
Aluko, aside lambasting BEDC, for not allowing the staff to be on its payroll for six months as agreed last year October before they were laid off, also condemned the fixed charges allegedly imposed on electricity consumers by the company.
The NLC chairman said the former PHCN’s workers were bonafide citizens of Nigeria who should not be treated like slaves.