Unpaid salary: Minister summonsPromasidor, labour leaders

MINISTER of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka
Wogu, Promasidor Nigeria Limited, and labour
leaders in the nation's Food and Beverage sector
are to meet in Abuja, today over refusal of the
company to pay workers for the three weeks it
locked them out in June.
Organised labour is threatening to declare
industrial actions on the company to compel Mr.
Keith Richard-led management to pay workers their
wages.
While Mr. Richard is insisting that the workers
must forfeit their pay for the three weeks the
management locked them out, workers are saying
the management must pay to avoid industrial
unrest.
Though the Lagos office of the Labour Ministry and
the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association,
NECA, has waded into the lingering dispute which
led to the opening of the company after a three-
week management lock-out, the management is
said to have refused to honour the agreement
reached.
Before this development, organized labour under
the umbrella of National Union of Food, Beverage
and Tobacco Employees, NUFBTE, had given the
management up to last Thursday to pay the
workers or face industrial unrest.
NUFBTE, in a letter to the Managing Director of
Promasidor, dated July 5, 2012, asked the MD to
stop misinforming workers of the current position
of things, by telling them that the company is
waiting for a pronouncement, and pay the workers
their full salaries to save the company from another
avoidable industrial unrest.
The letter signed by the Acting General Secretary
of NUFBTE, Comrade L. A. Danjuma, copying the
Ministry of Labour, employers body among others,
the union said "Information reaching us indicates
that you have deliberately decided to delay the
payment of salaries of your workers, (our
members) for the month of June 2012.
"This is further substantiated by your
communiqués date June 28th 2012 and July 4,
2012. To worsen matters you are deceitfully
misinforming workers of the current position, by
telling them that you are waiting for a
pronouncement. The mediators we had were the
Ministry of Labour and Productivity, Lagos State
and the Director General of Nigeria Employers'
Consultative Association (NECA).
"Both were unequivocal in asserting that you
locked out your workers and should therefore
accept responsibility. You have not in any form
denied locking out the workers. However, you
dismissed their recommendations as unreasonable.
This is unfortunate. If your contention is on the full
payment of our members salaries for the days you
locked them out, the position of the union remain
unchanged and irreversible.
"You must pay the full salary to the workers for the
month of June 2012. This is for the avoidance of
doubt, if by Thursday 12th July 2012, the salaries
of our members are not paid in full; we will without
much ado decide the next line of action. You are
hereby advised to avoid another crisis. Face
realities and stop misinforming the workers. Try as
you may, you cannot break our rank."