Turkish Airline/NUATE face-off and complacency of FG

CONFUSION reigned at the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport Lagos last week following the communication breakdown between the management of Turkish Airlines in Nigeria and the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) over labour issues.

The labour issue which has lingered on for so long has to do with the sack of some labour leaders by the airline over the opposition of the airline to unionism by its workers.

NUATE in a circular earlier issued to workers which notified of plans to withdraw services from the Turkish airlines effective October 29, 2020, over what it termed the failure of the management of the foreign airline to reverse the victimization of the sacked executive members of the union despite the clear injunction from the ministries of labour and aviation, declared: “To that effect, we are constrained to commence industrial action against the airline effect from Thursday. 29 of October, 2020, indefinitely and throughout Nigeria”.

The breakdown of communications between the two warring parties led to many passengers of the airline getting stranded at the Lagos airport as the issue remained unresolved.

Key players across the sector have reacted to the unfortunate development with many lamenting the sufferings and hardships the ongoing labour crisis has brought upon the innocent passengers who have remained at the receiving end, while others are blaming the unions for not showing considerations to the plights of the airlines in this time of hardships.

Another interest group has directly accused the foreign carrier of failing to obey the labour laws of Nigeria which forbid it or any foreign carrier for that matter to violate extant labour laws regarding the treatment of Nigerian workers in their establishments.

There is nothing as good as dialogue amidst the crisis, but the question is if either of the two sides has exhausted the available windows before going confrontational.

Without sounding bias, Turkish Airlines has failed to live up to expectations following its records since it commenced operations into the country.

The airline has a bad record in its maltreatment of Nigerian passengers both in Nigeria and in faraway Istanbul where many of its passengers including students were once abandoned for days while at times many passengers were flown into the country without their baggage accompanying them.

The airline obviously has shown total disregard to Nigeria’s labour laws and it has unfortunately been getting away with it.

Amidst this injustice, the federal government of Nigeria cannot be exonerated from this total disrespect to the country’s labour laws as the government at different points had displayed similar apathy towards its own labour laws which has encouraged many foreign carriers to follow suit.

The total disregard to the country’s labour laws by the Nigerian government itself played out in 2003 after the unjust liquidation of the defunct Nigeria Airways.

While it was so easy for the then government of President Olusegun Obasanjo to hurriedly pay the full entitlements of the foreign workers of the defunct national carrier spread across Europe and America in line with the labour laws of the foreign countries, it took the same government almost 16 years to sluggishly obey its own labour laws.

Sadly, when the government eventually decided to pay the Nigerian citizens who laboured for the defunct Nigeria Airways, the government shortchanged them by paying them half of the meagre amount they agreed to pay in contrast to what their counterparts in the foreign countries got.

The injustice there is that 17 years after this bad precedent was laid, the Nigerian workers of the defunct national carrier are still begging to be paid the balance of their final benefits after thousands of them died out of frustration without reaping the fruit of their labour.

For a government that takes joy in disobeying its own labour laws, how will the same government have the temerity to call to order a foreign airline like Turkish Airline when it disrespects the country’s labour laws.

Until the Nigerian government learns to respect its labour laws and other laws which are anti-people, the foreign carriers will continue to capitalize on this to rubbish Nigerians working in their establishments. Painfully, no other country takes lightly any act of disregard towards its labour laws except Nigeria.

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