Business
Indorama Contract Staff Demand Job Regularisation
Contract workers in Indorama Eleme Petrochemical Limited, last weekend, staged a peaceful protest at the company demanding their regularisation as full staff of the company. Chairman of the contract workers, Mr. Gift Ekpone, who addressed journalists during the protest said, the six months probation given as a condition for the full engagement of the contract workers has since elapsed. He said the contract workers have worked for over two years without receiving any attention or consideration from the management.
Ekpone disclosed that all the appeals of the contract workers to management to get their appointment regularized fell on deaf ears.
Rather, he said, the management of the company prefers to exploit the contract workers without any prospect of getting them absorbed into the mainstream work force.
“We are being exploited like bulls in the plant, we have worked as contract staff for over two years, contrary to the six months probation they gave us as a condition for our regularization. Our future is uncertain, as management has remained adamant to our demands”, he stated.
He called on the Rivers State Government and other labour stakeholders to intervene on their behalf and save them from what he referred to as “slave labour”.
Ekpone also frowned at a situation where Indian workers are given preferential treatment through juicy conditions of service, while Nigerians are made to wallow under dehumanising policies.
He said that, as contract workers, what they receive as allowances could barely take care of their cost of transportation.
Taneh Beemene