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Ajaokuta: Workers give management ultimatum
Babatunde Oke
Fresh crisis might erupt at the Ajaokuta Steel Company of Nigeria Limited, as junior workers have given the management of the steel plant up till Tuesday to settle all their outstanding allowance or halted the operations of the company.
The workers, under the aegis of the Steel and Engineering Workers Union of Nigeria, gave the management a seven-day ultimatum last Monday, after the dialogue between the in-house union and the management to resolve the issue broke down.
Our correspondent gathered that the disagreement between the two parties was the inability of the management to settle arrears of their leave and housing allowances as well as the arrears of the 12.5 per cent salary increment approved by the Federal Government since May.
It was learnt that the management after receiving the money for the payment of the 12.5 per cent pay rise, used it in settling arrears of salaries and other allowances apart from leave and housing allowances, without letting the workers know that government had released money for the pay rise purpose.
The problem started when the workers knew that the government had released money for settling the arrears of the 12.5 per cent pay rise, while they had been receiving almost half of their salaries since the beginning of the year.
It would be recalled that the of the steel manufacturing company was grounded to a halt for over one and a half decades because of the inability of the Federal Government to decide whether to privatise or complete it.
According to the agreement reached between the Federal Government and Solgas, government was to settle all the salaries and other entitlements of the workers for either 18 months after Solgas had taken over the management of the company or at the opening and inauguration of the company.
Our correspondent gathered that the government had reneged on the agreement as it had reduced the allocation on personnel costs for the company even before Solgas took over about 16 months ago.
This had caused serious problem between the workers and the management on several occasions since Solgas took over the company.
Twice between January and March 2004, the company�s management led by the Managing Director, Mr. Seun Oyefeso, appealed to the Federal Ministries of Finance and Power and Steel before the allocation for personnel costs was increased.
But since May, the workers had been receiving about 42 per cent of their salaries because of the shortage in allocation for personnel costs by the Finance Ministry.
The Punch, Monday July 05, 2004
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