Workers reject unions as TUC, NLC picket Abuja hotel

Workers of the Abuja Continental Hotel on Monday openly rejected moves to unionise them, chanting “No to union” as the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria and the Nigeria Labour Congress picketed the hotel over alleged anti-labour practices.

The unusual confrontation created a fresh twist in the labour dispute, as the workers whom the unions said they were protesting to protect insisted that they had not asked for the intervention and were not interested in joining any union.

The TUC and NLC, through their affiliates, had accused the hotel management of denying workers the right to unionise and engage in collective bargaining.

But some of the workers who spoke during the picketing exercise said they were not carried along in the dispute and questioned why organised labour had embarked on an action purportedly on their behalf.

Workers displayed placards with messages including: “The union are not representing us”, “We did not invite or request union representation. We are comfortable discussing our employment matters directly; TUC does not speak for us.”

Speaking with journalists, the workers’ spokesperson, Samuel Esiakpoyere, said the employees were unaware of the alleged correspondence and disagreements between the unions and the hotel management.

“To the best of our knowledge, this matter affects us. If there are correspondences, how many? How have they engaged these stakeholders? We have not seen anything. As we are talking, we have not seen anything. If there were correspondences and there were disagreements, we need to be involved because the whole thing is about us. We were not carried along. We are not interested,” he said.

Esiakpoyere said the workers believed management was making efforts to improve their welfare and warned that picketing the hotel could damage the business and ultimately hurt the employees the unions claimed to be defending.

“The management, they are doing their best, and we know that whatever we are going through is going to be a lot better. It’s going to be a lot better. We don’t want the union to kill us in trying to help us. If truly, the agenda that they are here for is to help us, you don’t have to kill us. You don’t have to stop the business. You don’t have to destroy everything because you want to make a point. It doesn’t work that way. To the best of my knowledge, I do not know who they are talking about. That is all I have to say. We are saying no to unionisation,” he declared.

However, the TUC dismissed the workers’ protest as not representative of all employees, insisting that several workers had expressed interest in joining the unions but were allegedly being intimidated. The TUC General Secretary, Nuhu Toro, said the labour centre had initially sought dialogue with the hotel management and written to it on August 4 to discuss the alleged violation of workers’ rights.

According to him, the management replied that it might not be available for discussion until the end of November due to renovation work at the hotel.

“And that is why we are here. But to show that we are peaceful people, that we are concerned about the progress of the organisation, we wrote to the hotel sometime on the 4th of August, inviting them for a discussion to see a peaceful way of resolving this issue amicably.

“But to our surprise, the management of Abuja Continental wrote us back to say, owing to the renovation exercise going on, they might not be available to discuss with us until the end of November. How does that make sense to you? We are talking about workers’ rights being violated. We are talking about workers being treated as slaves, and you are postponing it until the renovation is done,” Toro said.

He added, “Invariably, which means that by the time they are done with the renovation, all our workers will have died. And it’s against that background that we are here to exercise our fundamental right and press on our demand that they have a right to unionisation and collective bargaining. More so, they also have a right to enjoy Section 40 of the Constitution that allows them to freely associate. That’s why we are here.”

Toro rejected claims by some members of the hotel management that they were unaware of the correspondence, saying the TUC had documentary evidence of its engagement with the company.

“No, but that is not true. I can share with you the letter we sent to them, and I can also share their response to us. We have also availed the security agencies of all these correspondences, the police and the DSS, so that they can understand the true picture that we had made efforts in the spirit of good faith to have a frank discussion with them on what the issues are. But they have vehemently reneged, and it is against that background that we are here,” he said.

The TUC General Secretary said the picketing would continue until Friday, after which the labour movement would review the situation.

“We will be here for this week. From now until Friday, we will be here. We will review it on Friday. If they are ready to talk, we will talk. But I can assure you that the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, under the leadership of Comrade Engineer Osifo, is ready to dialogue. That was why we wrote the letter. It’s up to them to come and dialogue with us. If they want to dialogue right now, we are ready to dialogue with them,” Toro stated.

Reacting to the workers’ rejection of unionisation, he said, “Everybody has a right to their opinion. Are they all the workers? Can you authoritatively tell me that they are all the workers? No. So, of course, we don’t expect anything less. But I can assure you that the workers are members in there. They are resolute. They are ready to join the union and will ensure that their rights are guaranteed.”

Toro explained that the dispute was being pursued by the Hotel and Personal Services Senior Staff Association, an affiliate of the TUC, and the National Union of Hotels and Personal Services Employees, an affiliate of the NLC. “For the record, the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria is leading this action,” he added.

Also speaking, the National President of the Hotel and Personal Services Senior Staff Association, William Adegbe, alleged that the dispute reflected a wider pattern involving the hotel’s owners.

Adegbe claimed that union activities had been discouraged at the Abuja hotel following a change in ownership after the COVID-19 pandemic. “Continental Hotel has a history. Even Continental in Lagos, the same thing that is happening in Abuja is happening in Lagos. To go a little back to memory lane, Sheraton Hotel, which these people took over, there was a union here. But after COVID-19, when these people took over as new investors, they told their employees that union is a taboo,” he alleged.

He further accused the management of restricting workers’ access to conditions of service and association.

“They have established this place like a slave camp. Our members don’t have access to any form of conditions of service. Our members don’t have any right to any association, and that is against Section 40 of the Nigerian Constitution. There have been several cries, and we, at the affiliate level, have been writing several letters. Both NUPSE and HPSSA have written several letters and sought meetings with the management. That was why we escalated the matter to the labour centre, which is the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria,” he said.

Adegbe, however, alleged that some workers who publicly opposed the unions had been intimidated by the management.

“The few ones that they have intimidated this morning, as we are talking now, have written all their names. If they don’t do what they are doing, they are sure that by tomorrow, they won’t have a job anymore. Some of them are sending messages to us secretly. They are talking to us secretly that we must deliver them and that we should not mind what they are doing behind here. That is the message they send them, and that is what they are doing,” he alleged.

The picketing has therefore thrown up a sharp division over who truly speaks for the workers, with the employees publicly rejecting unionisation while the labour centres insist that workers who want to join the unions are being prevented from freely exercising that right.

Under Nigeria’s Constitution, citizens are guaranteed the right to peaceful assembly and association, while labour unions have continued to push for improved protection of workers’ rights, including freedom of association and collective bargaining.