By Victor Ahiuma-Young

THE Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and its affiliates, the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, MWUN, have rejected the recent increment in the salary of Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, workers describing the increase as a fraud.

NLC also noted that the purported pay rise is a bonus just as MWUN lamented that the management of NPA has bluntly refused to provide the template used to compute the increment.

The development came when the President of NLC, Joe Ajaero, paid a working visit to the National headquarters of MWUN in Olodi Apapa.

The NLC President stated that after 18-years salary stagnation, what NPA has just done is giving the workers a bonus which cannot be equated to salary increment.

Recall that MWUN had last year raised an alarm that salaries of workers of NPA were not increased for the past 18 years, pushing the Ministry of Transportation to approve an increment.

Presenting the challenges confronting the Union, President-General of MWUN, Prince Adewale Adeyanju,  informed that the salaries of maritime workers were recently reviewed after 18 years with an unknown template. 

He said the NPA only agreed to increase the salaries, after several protests, but without any known template for the review.

The President-General, said “We need to know the template NPA used to review our salary, since 18 years of stagnation.”

Responding, the NLC President, noted that the cost of living in the past 18 years has increased astronomically saying “If they should increase salary after 18 years and there is no template for its implementation. It a is fraud. They have to come out with the template.

“Some people will tell you that they have increased salary by adding N2, 000 on workers or N1, 000, this is an increase but it doesn’t follow the due process.

“If they have increased the salary, what they just did is an award and a bonus. Let the MWUN writes to NPA for us to negotiate salary, the NPA just dash us money, we would write them and thank them for the money, but they should come to the table and let’s negotiate.”