NIGERIA (Commonwealth Union) – Looks like it’s the season for union picketing again. There have been recent news reports of unions going on strike and picketing across Lagos for many reasons, the main one being the salary of the workers. This is an ongoing issue in all industries and usually the disruption is very minimal because in a matter of hours an agreement is come to and the union will stop the picketing.
Now the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA) has never actually had such issues as picketing. Even if there was an issue, it has never disturbed the airport work. However, the peaceful environment was brought to a halt when the picketing of unions came across the airport and its runway.
Of course, this disruption cost the airport money. Flights had to be re touted and there were cases of passengers missing connecting flight. These are expenses that the airport had to bear as it was the airport that made the changes suddenly. It did not matter that it was a picket by the union.
The airport management of course proved that the union actions were not in their legal rights as they cause this disruption, which ended up in the airport making a massive loss. The union realized that they had in fact broken not one but a few rules in their industrial relations laws as well as Nigerian national laws.
Of course, the picketing stopped immediately once the people that were picketing realized they could end up in jail for the laws broken, but by that time there was already heavy damage done. The authorities of the MMA have come together to try and fix this before it gets too out of hand and the monetary spending will go be higher than expected.
