22nd July, 2015
Kazeem Ugbodaga
Hundreds of staff and casual workers employed by the China Civil Engineering and Construction Corporation, CCECC, for the Lagos Blue Line Light Rail project today stormed the entrance of the Lagos Governor’s Office to protest the sack of about 500 workers by the corporation.
The wokers stormed the Governor’s Office, Alausa in Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria on Wednesday afternoon with placards to protest their unjust sack by the management of CCECC without severance package.
The workers, in a protest letter to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode said many of them had been employed by the company for the past five years and were laid off without any form of payment, demanding that the governor intervene in their plight to ensure that what duly belonged to them was paid by CCECC.
Spokesperson of the protesters, Mark Okila, who lost one arm while working for CCECC said the sacked worker said the protesters would want CCECC to pay the casual workers sacked N600,000 severance package and the workers laid off N800,000 several package.
“We were deprived of our rights while working for the company in such a way that the company will offer us a job without appointment letters. Even when they employ most of their workers for the space of five years, they will not convert them to staff.
“We are treated like slaves in the company and whenever we try to defend our rights, they will start dismissing us from work. They will say that if we are not ready to work in accordance with their policies, we should leave,” he said.
Kila lamented that casual workers with CCECC earned N550 per day while staff were paid N850 per day, adding that issues of safety had been jeopadised by the company as lots of industrial accidents had occurred during work-hour.
“We were giving appointment without any safety induction certification and safety gadgets. This has led many workers to have permanent disabilities and others even death in the process of working for the company and nothing serious has been done about it.
“We are seeking the intervention of the governor for justice to be done in this matter of abuse of citizen’s right by CCECC,” he said.
He vowed that the sacked workers would shut down the site of the rail project by tomorrow until their entitlements were fully paid by CCECC.
The protesters stated that in the process of working for the company, Mr. Mark Okila was involved in an accident which led to his right arm being amputated while Mr. Aondowase Fidelis lost his eye and Mr Moses Ajar lost his left thumb while working for the company.
According to Fidelis, who lost one of his eyes, he was working with a firing machine on 26 April, 2015 when the blade of the machine cut, with a piece of it entering one of his eyes.
He was rushed to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, only to be told that he had lost one of his eyes and could not see with it till now, adding that the company promised to compensate him, but that nothing had been done about it till now.
Addressing the protesters, the Chief of Staff to the Lagos Governor, Olukunle Ojo said the state government would call the protesters for a meeting next week, assuring that their entitlement would surely be paid.