t was a briskly Monday morning on December 14, 2020. Thousands of workers and residents trooped out across Port Harcourt on their way to work.
But somewhere away from the city centre, staff of Integrated Logistics Services (INTELS) were not looking to resume duty as they had recently been disengaged. Instead, they gathered in their numbers and barricaded the entrance to the firm’s yard in Port Harcourt, displaying placards with different inscriptions and chanting solidarity songs.
Their grouse was that the management of INTELS failed to pay over four months terminal and redundancy benefits after workers were relieved of their jobs in October 2020, citing the impact of COVID-19.
Some of the placards bore messages such as “Kindly do the needful; pay us our Redundancy Money”, “Every Labourer Deserves His Wages, Pay us our Money”, “Please INTELS do the needful, pay us don’t send us home empty handed we were your workers.”
The week-long strike was stopped on December 16 by the National Industrial Court in Port Harcourt, which restrained the unions from embarking and continuing industrial action.
Experts’ predictions
The International Trade Centre, a global organisation fostering sustainable and economic development, said in May 2020 that the COVID-19 crisis is affecting companies across all regions, including about 60 per cent of businesses.
Earlier in 2020, it was predicted that the majority of economies will lose at least 2.9 per cent of their Gross Domestic Product, GDP, but it recorded a 4.5 per cent GDP loss in 2021. GDP is used to compare countries’ economic performance but widely used to assess living standard, progress and social welfare among countries.
The International Labour Organisation, a global workers union, also estimated that 3.3 billion workers globally will lose their job due to COVID-19.
COVID-19 happened to INTELS, oil sector
INTELS is Nigeria’s foremost logistics company in the oil and gas sector. Most local and international oil companies depend on its services to transport crude among other essential services. But beyond the stress on the dampening global oil prices in recent years, COVID happened in 2020, further compounding the company’s revenue woes.
A senior staff of the company who pleaded anonymity attributed the sack of the workers to the impact of COVID-19 and fallen oil prices.
Once owned by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar until he sold all his stake in 2020, INTELS has operated as a major oil transporter for international oil companies, IOCs, for decades. It has a prominent presence in Rivers and Delta, but with COVID-19, but its trading capabilities have dwindled following the pandemic.
Petroleum exports remain Nigeria’s major source of revenue. However, in recent times, workers in oil companies have fallen on hard times with shale oil, electric vehicles and other emerging technologies reducing worldwide dependence on hydrocarbons.
State-owned oil corporation, NNPC, has also not been immuned from the crisis. The company also cut over 850 workers amidst the pandemic in 2020, oil workers’ union PENGASSAN said.
INTELS workers narrate ordeal
Obaye Godswill, a staff of INTELS at the Heliconia Park, Eastern By-Pass in Port Harcourt is among the over 600 staff placed on redundancy without payment. Things became much more difficult as he couldn’t fend for his wife, three children and over 6 siblings under his care due to the impact of COVID-19.
Worst still, his mobility is limited due to disability, hence, he couldn’t go around in search of menial jobs.
With over six months of no payment of redundancy and retirement benefit, Mr Godswill could not pay his children school fees. Payment of house rent was also a problem.
Mr GodsWill has worked for the company for over 15 years, and he is entitled to redundancy benefits and gratuity as stated in his employment letter, but the company failed to give him.
“I couldn’t pay my bills, I had to sell off my car because I can no longer maintain it. My dad’s burial was withheld since I’m the first child and the other siblings are still undergraduate,” he told The Gazette.
However, The Gazette learnt that staff of the company in Delta State were also placed on redundancy.
Alex Kpikpi worked with INTELS in Delta under the AMS. He told The Gazette that during the period when the company placed workers on redundancy, things were very difficult for himself and family.
“They told some of us to stay at home, that something is coming. They were not paying for two months before they later started paying us, in bits, the amount deducted monthly from our salaries,” he said, adding that the payment started at the end of January.
Sunday Bode, has been working for the company at Eleme/Onne Freezone for over decade but after he was placed on redundancy in December, he is yet to receive his payment from the company.
Mr Bode said amid the pandemic when millions of people are struggling to fend for themselves, he couldn’t purchase drugs for his last son due to the company’s failure to compensate workers placed on redundancy.
Mr Bode said, “My mother, brother live with me, and I take care of them including my four children. Life has never been easy since we were placed on redundancy and the company failed to pay our benefits.”
Mr Bode, a forklift operator at the company said he was employed by INTELS but was posted to one of the company’s service providers, AMS.
“But everything was always going on well till 2015 when the new government took over. Even so, the company has always paid staff of AMS and INTELS redundancy benefits until last December. The company started saying we are not their staff.
“Even last October, workers placed on redundancy were paid, but our own is now different”, he said, noting further that the work is stressful and they work 24 hours yet are not being paid their benefits.
Mr Bode has now shifted to his poultry business for survival but things are not working as planned.
Clement Alakurome was employed in 2010, until his sack, he was forklift, man loader and payloader operator. He said amidst the lockdown, some workers were taking turns to go to work and salaries were paid until December 2020, ” when we were fully placed on redundancy.
Mr Alakurome has been working at the company branch at Onne Freezone until he was transferred to Delta State where he met his sack. He told The Gazette he is jobless since the sack and life has never been easy for himself as the company has decided to punish workers despite serving for decades.
Breach of agreement
But Tunde Bolaji, the workers’ union chairman at the Associated Maritime Services Limited, AMS, said the company recently claimed staff of AMS are not employees of the company but contractual staff.
Mr Bolaji, still a staff of INTELS, told The Gazette the company only used the excuse to deny AMS staff of their redundancy benefits.
“AMS staff are employed by INTELS and then handed over to AMS to provide services for INTELS. But the company is claiming AMS staff are contract staff,” Mr Bolaji said.
The union leader noted that an earlier agreement had been that before workers should be sacked, the company must inform the union.
“This is to ensure we sit down and discuss benefits for workers before laying them off. We are not against retrenchment but we are saying, have discussion with the union and give workers what belongs to them,” he stressed.
A copy of an agreement between the workers unions and the company, cited by The Gazette shows the company accepted to pay both workers serving under Intels and AMS all terminal benefits due them within two weeks of termination and failure to do so, management will pay a two weeks’ pay arising from the delay. But, The Gazette learnt the company breached the agreement by owing workers for over six months.
Also, redundant workers who had served the company for five years and above are entitled to receive three N300,000 per year as additional gratuity based on outstanding number of years for gratuity payment while workers that had worked for one to four years, will receive N1.5 million as lump-sum as additional gratuity. Employees that have worked for a minimum of one year and have spent six months will be paid based on prorated basis.
Dozens of sources told The Gazette that the company did not keep to the agreement and it only agreed to pay gratuity fees and not the redundancy benefits which seems bigger.
While workers who worked under INTELS and put on redundancy were paid all the agreed benefit, AMS workers were not paid, Mr. Bolaji said.
“The company only agreed to pay staff working under INTELS and left AMS staff as they are more in number,” the union chairman said.
The Gazette learnt the case between INTELS and the sacked staff is now in court with suit No: NCIN/PHC/155/2020. The next sitting was scheduled to be held on May 5 but the court didn’t sit due to the ongoing JUSUN strike.
Calls for comments made to INTELS image maker Michael Ndon were not responded to for days. The Gazette later learnt Mr Ndon had been sacked. A new spokesperson for the firm could not be reached for comments after several weeks of efforts.
This report was facilitated by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) under its Free to share project.
