All is not well in the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria FAAN, as labour unions have shut down all activities in the headquarters of the agency.
As early as 5am this morning, the unions padlocked all the major and access gates to prevent entry.
This is in protest for the failure of the FAAN Management to meet their demands as contained in a letter sent to Management with a 7 day window of grace to fulfill their demands or face strike.
The unions at the center of this matter are the, National Union of Air Transport Employees NUATE, Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, ATSSSAN and the Association of Nigerian Aviation Professionals, ANAP.
This development is coming barely 4 hours to the arrival of the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika for a scheduled town hall meeting with the staff of the agency today at noon.
The venue for the meeting which had already been set up with canopies and decorated have been padlocked and the chairs brought out for protesting members to sit.
Their demands include immediate payment of all outstanding allowances, leave allowances, remittance of contributory pensions, cooperative deductions, gratuity of retired staff and death benefits.
Others are immediate release of aviation intervention funds, immediate implementation of the national minimum wage and immediate remittance 105.3 billion actuarial valuation as 2016 to PFA’s, immediate reparation of 2020 actuarial valuation and other staff claims.
The Unions, yesterday afternoonhad alerted its members across airports in the country to embark on strike after the 7 day ultimatum issued to FAAN Management to meet their demands and boycott any town hall meeting with the aviation Minister.
To ensure their protest achieve the desired results vehicles were used to block all gates including that of the NAMA to prevent any vehicle from gaining access to the area.
