Minimum Wage: Dockworkers Get Pay Rise To N150,000
LAGOS NOVEMBER 27TH (NEWSRANGERS)-President-general of the Maritime Workers Union (MWUN), Comrade Adewale Adeyanju, at the weekend said private terminal operators at the nation’s seaports have substantially increased the wages earned by dockworkers from an average of N10,000 before the 2006 port concession to about N150,000.
Adeyanju, who stated this while speaking with newsmen in Lagos, said dockworkers now enjoy much better working condition compared to what was obtained in the pre-concession era.
According to him, “Before concession, they are just using us as slaves in our fatherland. Nobody knew what his take home pay would be. Sometimes, some people get between N10, 000 and N20, 000 per month but today, it has improved tremendously to between N100, 000 and N150, 000.”
Adeyanju, who lauded terminal operators for increasing the wages of dockworkers in spite of the low volume of import in the country, appealed to the Federal Government to urgently fix the dilapidated port access roads, which, he said, is adversely affecting port operation and the nation’s economy.
The roads to the seaports, according to him, are bad and because of that some of the vessels that are supposed to come to the port are sometimes diverted to neighbouring countries.
“Some of the dockworkers are on payment by tonnage; some are on permanent employment while some are on unit payment. For those on payment by tonnage, it is the higher the tonnage, the better payment for them so the bad road is affecting our members,” he pointed out.
The union leader, however, appealed to the terminal operators to urgently sign the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) for a review of retirement benefit for dockworkers.
To him, “We are not being rigid in negotiations so that we can accommodate both the employer and the employee. We are not demanding so much because we felt all of us are working together. If the economy is improved, the lives of the workers will also improve. We don’t want to be rigid in our negotiation and that is what is causing the delay now.
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Posted by News Rangers
on Nov 27 2018. Filed under Business.
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