The International Transport Federation (ITF) and affiliates members from Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Liberia – dockworkers branch have unfolded plans to seek a uniform and upward review of Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) for dockworkers in Africa to meet global standard.
The agreement was reached when top ITF officials met with the leadership of MWUN to discuss challenges faced by the union and impact of the port privatisation on their operations.
Speaking, ITF Dockers Section Coordinator, Enrico Totarlano, said the ITF would work and support dockworkers in Africa to have the global framework agreement starting with APM terminals.
“We are looking at having one single CBA so that whatever is applicable in Nigeria is applicable in Kenya and other Africa countries because ITF has a very productive engagement with multinationals companies.
“When we have this kind of global framework agreement, it’s going to benefit us. If we have any challenge in Nigeria, Liberia and others, it will be addressed.
“ We need to know when the current CBA will expire and I think we need to get together again collectively before negotiations start so that we can agree on what we want in the new CBA. But its important we know what is in the four countries CBA, are they very different or similar? So we need to start harmonising these on the path to the regional agreement,” he said.
Africa Regional Secretary, ITF, Muhammed Safiyanu said the meeting also seeks to create a network of African dockworkers to address members operational challenges.
He advised the union members to always seek assistance from ITF and carry them along in their negotiations before embarking on industrial action.
He said,” We are also looking to have what we call the African dockworkers under the ITF network. Now we are concentrating on four countries- Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Liberia. It’s a network that we really want to develop. Specifically now, we are going to focus on APM Terminals and later expand it.
“I also like to add that anytime you have a challenge with all these multinationals that will likely lead you to declaring industrial action let us know in good time. We might even be able to solve the problem even without the strike action.
“Don’t just go into strike action and when the thing gets worse you then try to call ITF. Where do we start? Put us in the forefront before the issues first so that when start so that anytime we want to intervene, we know where to start.”
Safiyanu also challenged women to take up elective positions in their respective unions.
Earlier in his remarks, President General of MWUN, Comrade Adewale Adeyanju, sought the support of ITF to have a single CBA to achieve the global standard for dockworkers in Africa and help improve their welfare.
“We need the support of ITF so that we can have a global content in our CBA that involves all the multinational companies, our CBA is supposed to be a single one.
“When we have a single CBA, it would put a stop to all the atrocities being committed by multinational companies, they come to Nigeria and Africa to make money, and at the end of the day, they repatriate the money to their countries.
“Meanwhile, the people and citizens of the land are left not catered for,” he said.
Photo caption:
R-L: ITF Dockers Section Coordinator, Comrade Enrico Totarlano, ITF Representatives in Nigeria , Comrade Ayo Ohiwere, President General MWUN Comrade Adewale Adeyanju and a Labour union leader from Ghana during the meeting in Lagos on Monday.
