Earlier in the week, Nigeria joined other parts of the world to celebrate workers day on May 1st precisely.
Without going to the history of how the day came into being, one obvious fact is that the whole world remembers this day in recognition of the contributions of workers to the economy and development of a country.
In other words, the workers can be described as the geese that lay the golden eggs on which each country depends for survival.
Therefore, since Nigeria is not an island, it equally joined in the celebration of the special day with government and its officials as usual praising the workers to high heaven and promising them better conditions of services.
Nigeria’s aviation sector was not left out as the aviation unions came out in their numbers to celebrate the role of aviation workers in the transformation of the sector to its present state.
The different union leaders who spoke on the occasion while acknowledging the important roles of the workers, however lamented how the government had failed to reward their efforts commensurately.
Obviously, without the workers, the different development the sector had recorded particularly in the areas of the use of professional expertise to tackle issues as they occur for the transformation of the sector in line with the global standard would have been far behind.
It is no longer news that most functions of aviation workers are very sensitive and highly cerebral tasking for the subsequent safety and security of activities including seamless flight operations.
It is on record that professionals in the country’s aviation sector are some of the best around the world as witnessed in the zero accident recorded in the last seven years and the high rating of the sector despite the many unfavourable government policies.
It is however unfortunate that despite all the efforts of the workers to keep the sector on top, many actions of the government have lowered their morales as against the different ways the government should reward the good labour of its workforce.
Prior to the coming of democracy, aviation workers like their counterparts in other sectors had been highly patriotic and competitive because of the rewards and merits awaiting them. Therefore, they are ever ready to give the best in their various professional callings.
Things started falling apart with the enthronement of democracy as the politicians came to scatter the system with their selfish tendencies.
The expectation of every worker is to enjoy some basic conditions such as being promoted at the right time, merited benefits, salary increase and other good conditions of services but these natural rewards have been relegated by the politicians who through their undue politicisation of the sector have continued to undermine the workers.
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While many professional workers who deserve to have been promoted have remained on a cadre for over ten years, many families or cronies of the politicians who knew next to nothing about aviation had and still being brought in to take over the jobs of the professionals trained on the jobs.
The politicians have even succeeded in creating ethnicity in the sector as many of their candidates often smuggled into the system have been found to come from a particular zone of the country at the expense of other zones thus creating animosity in a sector that should be managed in line with international rules and regulations devoid of any sentiment.
The painful part is that it is the neglected professionals that ended up doing the job of the neophytes that are illegally brought into the sector with their salaries tripling the salaries of the professionals. In other words, merit is no longer the order of the day and because of this illegality, things have gone wrong in the system.
Despite the frantic efforts of the unions to change this injustice, many of the politicians remained adamant in their resolve without considering the negative implications on the generality of the psyche of the workers and the system.
It is therefore, hoped that the unions will not relent in their moves to ensure that the workers are adequately rewarded for their jobs with improved conditions of services devoid of sentiments.
The workers whose hard work is responsible for keeping the sector going deserve better treatment from the government and should not be a case of being relegated or continuously being made to suffer injustice due to political favoritism and nepotism. A good worker deserves his wages.
and then