About 400
aggrieved ex-employees of Baker and Hughes, the third largest
multi-national oil servicing company in Nigeria, at the weekend staged a
peaceful protest at the premises of the National Industrial Court in
Enugu where they are challenging their unlawful disengagement by the
company.
The protesting ex-workers were demanding for their entitlements said to be worth a whooping N12 billion from the company.
The
protesters carrying placards, chanted slogans against the company and
its Chief Executive Officer, Martin Craighead, insisting that their
disengagement did not comply with existing labour laws in Nigeria.
Some of the
placards they displayed read: ‘Baker and Hughes, How many more deaths???
Pay us while we are alive’, ‘Martin Craighead, slave master’, ‘Baker
and Hughes pay us our money’, ‘Baker and Hughes, pay us like Congo,
Gabon, Chad and Ghana’, ‘Baker and Hughes is nepotism.’
Briefing
journalists outside the courtroom, George Ogara, counsel to the
claimants/plaintiffs, said they were asking Baker and Hughes to pay them
their adequate severance packages.
Ogara said
they were also asking for the post employment medical benefits as
operated in other African countries in the same geo-market with Nigeria,
such as Congo, Gabon, Chad and Ghana.
He regretted
that while workers disengaged by the company in the other African
countries were adequately compensated with redundant allowances, Baker
and Hughes treated those in Nigeria like slaves, not minding the
position of Nigeria as the head of the geo-market.
Ogara
regretted that 15 of the disengaged workers have died and their widows
are suffering, adding that they were asking that their entitlements be
paid to them.
Earlier
yesterday, hearing on the suit brought before the National Industrial
Court in Enugu by the ex-employees against the company was stalled,
following the plea by the defendants’ counsel for more time to enable
them to resolve issues over their representation as well as file their
reply to the suit.
Ogara, the
counsel to the claimants/plaintiffs, had asked the court to allow him to
proceed with his motion on notice as it appeard that the respondents
were not opposing it.
The motion
is seeking among others, for an order to restrain General Electrics from
acquiring Baker and Hughes or ensuring that the ex-employees are paid
their benefits (totalling about N12 billion) before the acquisition.
However, one
of the respondent counsel, Ismail Muftau, told the court that he has
not received the processes for the motion on notice fixed for the day.
Muftau, who
appeared alongside Ayoade Oluwasammi, for the defence, later admitted
that he only sighted the processes from one of his colleagues in the
defence and asked for time to reply to it when served.
But Ogara
told the court that the claimants were in a hurry and that the
defendants were bidding for more time to destroy the res (subject
matter) in the case.
In his
ruling, Justice Auwal Ibrahim said the matter has to be adjourned to
enable service to all the parties and to allow the two lawyers to the
defendants to resolve issues about the particular defendants that they
are representing.
Justice Ibrahim adjourned the matter to March 10 for the hearing of the motion.
Speaking
with journalists after the court’s sitting, Ogara said they were asking
for justice for 219 ex-employees of Baker and Hughes, who are among the
1,000 who were declared redundant and sent home without benefits.
But Muftau
who equally spoke with journalists outside the courtroom, dismissed the
claim of the ex-employees, saying they collected severance benefits and
returned to court thereafter to ask for more.
0 comments:
Post a Comment