Two aviation unions comprising Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN) and National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE ), the unions have threatened to declare a state of emergency in the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) if their demands for staff promotion and other welfare issues are not met.
The unions claimed that the management of NCAA has taken them for granted with regards to the issues of promotion of NCAA staff.
Speaking on the issue, Comrade Lucky Izebhokun, Chairman, Joint Action Committee, NCAA and chairman NUATE, NCAA branch made it clear that NCAA management would be looking for trouble if they did not promote the staff of NCAA by the end of immediate past year.
Comrade Izebhokun who hinted that the anxiety was so high while a lot of people had been highly discouraged in the system added that there was the possibility that the aggrieved workers would pour out their mind early in the new year.
According to Izebhokun: “Now the Management has so much relegated the staff of NCAA so much so that they will be employing, doing secondment and transfer of people from other organizations to come and boss us, we have had issues with people being transferred from NAMA especially, because there is no promotion in NCAA, you will see now bossing the people in NCAA, we have told Management that we can no longer accept that.
“We wrote them, we have to do due diligence, we wrote them and told them that within the next three weeks if you do not give our people promotion, we are talking about promotion from level 14 to 15 and 16 that is senior management cadre, if you don’t promote them there will be serious issues”, the union leader added.
On his own part, Comrade Ayodele Sofolayan, Chairman of ATSSSAN, NCAA branch confirmed that the issue of staff promotion in NCAA was already generating a lot of anxiety and that the issue has been delayed for long.
His words: “we have been on this issue for the past one year and we have not seen any good result, we have given the Management of NCAA ultimatum to either get this promotion done or we declare a state of emergency”.
In his reaction,the General Manager, Public Relations of NCAA, Mr. Sam Adurogboye said NCAA was known for industrial harmony and that management and the unions have always been on the same page,
While expressing optimism that both parties will reach a compromise very soon,
Adurugboye declared: “The good thing about NCAA management is that they appreciate that we do not award contract, no capital project, the capital project of NCAA is the human resource, so we spend about 70% of our budget annually on human resource, so if for once they are raising an issue, I believe they will resolve it as we have always done, so to me, it’s not a threat, they will definitely sit at a point and reach a conclusion”.
and then