NLC Pickets Chinese Construction Company For Maltreatment Of Nigerian Workers

Members of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) took over the premises of Shaanxi Construction Engineering Group Corporation in Abuja to address labour issues affecting workers in the company.

The picketing action at the Chinese construction company handling the construction of the ECOWAS new office complex in Lugbe, Abuja was aimed at drawing attention to the company’s alleged violations of labour rights and dehumanisation of workers.

The picketing held at the ongoing construction site of the new headquarters of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Lugbe, Federal Capital Territory.

Mobilise for the picketing

Trouble started at 7:30 am when workers gathered at Labour House, NLC’s headquarters, to mobilise for the picketing.

The workers, numbering over six hundred stormed the premises and met initial resistance at the gate of the company.

At first, the gate of the company was locked against the NLC leadership and its placard-bearing picketing team but was eventually forced it open.

The General secretary of NLC, Comrade Emmanuel Ugboaja who addressed the workers said that the congress responded to a complaint by the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) chapter of the Construction Workers union over bad working conditions at the construction site.

Welfare or medical services

He also said that the Chinese company engaged the workers on adhoc basis with no conditions of service attached nor any welfare or medical services in place.

Ugboaja said that while the picketing action continued, the leadership of NLC hopes to engage the management of Shaanxi Construction Engineering Group Corporation in discussion to address the concerns of their workers

He regretted that, due to the deplorable working conditions at the place, one of the workers, a driver named Augustine, died of neglect and a lack of timely medical attention.

He said the maltreatment led to the demise of one of the drivers, Mr. Augustine.

Mr Ugbaja said ” Mrs Ruth Augustine migrated with her husband and family to Abuja to come and earn a living. Now the man, in a bid to help build the ECOWAS Secretariat, has ended up six feet down, leaving his poor widow to face the vagaries of life with no pension, no gratuity, no food, no water, and no explanation of where help will come from. Every day we plead with government to provide minimal social security, to no avail. That is the challenge we have. This challenge is real.”

Narrating her ordeal, Mrs. Ruth Augustine said that her husband was employed in 2022  as a driver by the Chinese company with stringent work conditions that did not allow him to return home after work.

“He would work from Monday until Sunday. I asked him whether they gave him bonuses for the overtime and extra work he was doing. He said no. My husband would work from morning till night with no food, and he would not be allowed to come home. Even when he returned home, he would not stay up to an hour before rushing back to the site,” the woman lamented.

She recalled that after her late husband returned to work in January, following the Christmas festivities, he stayed back for two months at the company without visiting home.

She, however, became worried and called him.

“From the conversation, I knew he was very sick,” she recounted.

According to her, the company failed to take her husband to the hospital and still did not allow him to go home for treatment.

“When they eventually permitted him to go home, his situation had worsened. He had a swollen neck and looked highly malnourished,” she said.

She said she took her husband to the Gwagwalada Teaching Hospital in Abuja and later to the National Hospital, where he passed away.

Letter of termination

In all this ordeal, the widow said the Chinese company failed to heed her pleas for assistance and instead got a letter of termination of appointment for her husband.

The Chinese firm, Shaanxi Construction Engineering Group Corporation, was alleged to be ill-treating some Nigerian staff under its employment, a development that prompted the protest.

The management of the construction company did not addressed the protesters nor responded to the allegations raised by the NLC, during the long protest.

In his appreciation remarks, the President of the National Union of Civil Engineering, Construction, Furniture and Wood Workers, Mr. Steve Okorie, said that injury to one was injury to all.

He commended the NLC leadership for standing up to fight their cause.

 

Lateefah Ibrahim