Maritime Workers Suspend Strike

• Maritime Workers Suspend Strike

The Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria has suspended the strike it embarked upon between Wednesday and Thursday.

The union indicated this on Friday in a statement jointly signed by its President General, Adewale Adeyanju, and the Secretary General, Felix Akingboye.

The statement read in part, “We wish to thank you all for the solid support /solidarity given to the union for the past few days we have embarked on a strike action against the management of the international oil companies who have taken delight in breaking

Nigerian laws with impunity and also denied dockworkers payment of salaries/wages for the past one year.

“We have noted with grave concern that some major stakeholders in the industry who are not in any way involved on why the union embarked on a strike action are adversely affected in their operations.

“However, arising from the intervention of the permanent secretaries of the Federal Ministry of Transportation, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, some notable stakeholders especially, the Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority, Miss Hadiza Bala-Usman and her management team, whose two weeks’ ultimatum to the IOCs on the same issue expires on Monday July 8, we have decided to suspend the strike action pending the outcome of a meeting scheduled to take place next week.”

The union stated further that the forthcoming meeting would involve the managements of the NPA, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, the IOCs and the leadership of the MWUN.

The union had embarked on strike after the end of two weeks ultimatum asking the Federal Government to compel IOCs to pay outstanding wages to dockworkers appointed by the NPA.