JOB SECURITY:  MWUN To Sign Agreement With MSC On behalf Of Workers 

Sequel to the acquisition of Bollore Group by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC).the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) is seeking to obtain a formal agreement and a communique that will guarantee job security of workers in the employ of the Tin Can Island Container Terminal (TICT)  .

Recall that MSC announced last year that its wholly owned subsidiary, SAS Shipping Agencies Services, has completed the acquisition of Bollore Africa Logistics. MSC’s acquisition of Bolloré Africa Logistics comprises all of Bolloré Group’s transport and logistics activities in Africa, including shipping, logistics and terminals operations, as well as terminal operations in India, Haiti and in Timor-Leste. Bolloré Africa Logistics is the biggest transport and logistics operator in Africa with nearly 21,000 employees in 49 countries, including 47 in Africa.

But speaking with journalists shortly after a closed-door meeting with the management of TICT and Bollore Logistics at the union’s secretariat in Lagos on Monday, President General of MWUN, Comrade Adewale Adeyanju said the union had written to the MSC headquarters in France seeking clarification on the terms of service under which the new management of the port terminal will operate.

 

Adeyanju said workers at the terminal were apprehensive three weeks ago when the name of the terminal was suddenly changed without carrying the union along.

 

 

He said, “So, we are about to have a communique between the union and the new management so that there won’t be issues between the workers and the management because the workers are apprehensive over the sudden name change in the past three weeks and they were not even carried along.

 

Continuing, he noted that” So, we felt there is a need for us to have a town hall meeting so we can sensitize the workers and hear from the management as well.

 

“The union on its own has written to MSC in France for clarifications because MSC Nigeria cannot take responsibility for the global body so that we will be able to know what they have for the workers not just to say you are changing name because from changing names anything can happen.

 

“From there now they can come back and say they want to change their management and from there it is going to affect the workers. “TICT has assured us that the workers will not lose their job and that is the purpose of inviting the management to come and tell us what they have for the workers and the beauty of it is that they have the CBA with the two bodies.

 

” So, the CBA still stands and their right of obligations still remain, their condition of service still remains and that is what will form part of our communique with them so that we can hold it and anybody that now goes against the communique, the union can then react,”

 

Adeyanju, said the agreement which will involve MSC, Bollore Group and TICT becomes necessary to avoid what happened in 2006 when the ports were concessioned and how dockworkers lost their job despite assurances from the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).

 

“We had a good meeting but there is no how we are going to trust employers because they always use sweet words to deceive workers. We all know what happened in NPA when we were told that nobody will lose their job and dockworkers will get more employment but at the end of the day what happened? So that one has taught us a very big lesson that is why we said we should have a concrete communique coming from all sides so that nobody deceives the Nigerian workers of TICT because we won’t allow them to play on our intelligent.

 

“The way it is now even if they want them to be paid off, who is paying off, is it the new or old buyers. So. we are being very careful so that all the correspondence we have exchanged between the new management and the old one lets us hear the outcome and if they want to pay everybody fine but job security first because even if they pay everybody off now there is no tendency for the workers to be reemployed,” he said.