The Chairman, Trade Union Congress (TUC), Rivers State chapter Comrade Chika Onuegbu says success of the $1.5 billion Indorama Fertilizer Plant project at Eleme Petrochemical Company Limited, remains a remarkable achievement to the congress under his leadership.
Onuegbu said but for the sacrifice and wisdom applied while managing the labour crisis that arose in the company in 2011, the global directors of the firm would have taken the project to Egypt or other parts of the world.
He said, “in 2011, Indorama workers were in crisis and the global directors of the company wanted to take decision on how to site the largest fertilizer plant in Africa and because of the crisis they were thinking of siting it in Egypt.
“Then we went to the MD and asked him what can TUC do to ensure that the global directors reverse their decision and site the plant here? He said no, the matter is with the global directors”.
The TUC boss who disclosed this when the Public Complaints Commission (PCC) in Rivers State paid him a courtesy visit, said that when the congress realised that Nigeria was missing this important project, they wrote a letter to the Global Directors in Singapore and assured them of industrial peace.
At the end of the interventions, he said, the members who felt disappointed demanded that we tender apology for the misrepresentation made in the attempt to get the attention of the management of EPCL Indorama to attend to workers’ interest on staff welfare and collective agreement matters.
Onuegbu who noted that sometimes members of the public have erroneous impression of strike, said labour unions are never interested in embarking on strike but do so when that becomes the last resort and strike is declared.
“But what they may not know is that we have tried to resolve a lot of issues and we use our mechanism to avert crisis. We don’t celebrate strike, because it is a failure of industrial relation and not something we can be happy about”, he said.
He stated that one way to avoid strike is by regular engagement and promised to also engage the Public Complaints Commission (PCC) in labour issues for more industrial harmony.
The PCC Commission in Rivers State, Dr. Alpheus Paul-Worika who led the management on the visit said the aim of the visit was to seek collaboration with TUC so that the issue of administrative injustice on labour matters could be reduced.
Paul-Worika noted that the inability of the workers and unions to bring their complaints had resulted in many industrial cases in courts and Police stations.

Chris Oluoh