Read Part I here.
Companies hired casual workers soon after redundancy exercise
A worrying dimension to the redundancy exercise in the companies was the allegation that just after the purge, the companies, particularly Nigerian Breweries and Seven-Up, immediately recruited more workers than they sacked, including those very staff they fired, but this time as casuals.
Some of the sacked workers, but re-recruited as casuals, who spoke under anonymity for fear of persecution, confirmed that casualisation and outsourcing have sort of become the norm in the industry.
They also revealed that NUFBTE has become notorious for its support for casualisation since it had reached an understanding with employers in the industry for the deduction and remittance of check-off dues from salaries of casual workers.
We gathered that though many of the casual workers are unaware of this practice, the few who do and had tried to resist because NUFBTE had never defended them when they are arbitrarily sacked, are often bullied and threatened.
In fact, one of the victims of the redundancy, who was re-employed as casual worker a week after the redundancy, told this reporter that NUFBTE will always benefit no matter the situation since check-off is paid to the union on the head of both regular and casual workers.
“NUFBTE is seriously benefiting from the redundancy. With this exercise, the union is not losing anything. This is because for every fulltime employee sacked, two to three casual workers are employed as replacement, and from them, the companies pay check-off to the union,” said the source who estimated that in the last five years alone, the number of casual workers in the industry has doubled from about five thousand to more than 10 thousand.
Companies Keep Mum
For several weeks, in the course of our inquiry into the allegation that the redundancies that led to the sack of over 600 workers in the food and beverage sector were instigated by the Food Union, efforts by National Record to get the side of the companies failed.
Our inquiry email sent to Nigerian Breweries Plc since mid-September for the management to speak on why it declared redundancy when available statistics indicate that the company was doing very well, has up to now not been responded to.
Similarly, when contacted on September 29, 2021, Dufil-Deunited Foods Industry Limited, makers of Indomie, after transferring National Record’s call from one desk to another, eventually declined comment, and asked that the reporter instead email his “inquiries with a proposal kind of memo and proper introduction of the newspaper.” While this was immediately done, the company has up to the time of going to press not responded.
The Director of Human Resources of Seven-Up Bottling Company Ltd, Mr Yinka Olufade, when contacted, declined comment, saying he is the wrong person to speak to as he doesn’t speak to the press.
“You’re actually speaking to the wrong person. I manage Control and Transformation, which is basically HR, so I don’t speak to the press. I’m saying this so that I don’t waste your time, okay; because no matter whatever topic you take, I will not be in the position to react to such,” Mr Olufade said.
Although he assured that he was going to link this reporter to the right officer, he however failed to keep to the promise and several other calls made to remind him proved abortive as he neither picked nor called back.
It’s outrageous to say we’re behind redundancy – General Secretary
In a telephone interview on September 29, 2021 with then Acting General Secretary of NUFBTE, Comrade Mike Olanrewaju, whose appointment was confirmed into substantive position on October 15, 2021 at the meeting of National Executive Council (NEC) of the union, said it is outrageous and laughable for anyone to say the union and its leadership were behind the redundancy exercises in the three companies.
“The question of saying the redundancy was at our behest was in fact very outrageous and laughable. How can the union go to the managements and ask for redundancy? Yes, we have issues and challenges in the system; but apart from Seven-Up where [Comrade Peter] Onoja comes from, there are some other companies that redundancies have not been carried out. Why don’t we go there and ask them to do redundancy; in these other companies; they (agitators) have members there? That allegation is not true!” Comrade Olanrewaju said
The General Secretary who gave details behind the redundancy exercises in the three companies in the conversation that lasted for almost half an hour, said in the Nigerian Breweries, it was the management that brought the issue up.
“For Nigerian Breweries, in fact, they applied to us in accordance with the provisions of the law; they intimated us about their plans to carry out restructuring across their plants across the country. I remember they wrote to us [about their intention to do so].
“You see, ordinarily, I think you know that the law permits them, and they have to just inform us on the extent of their plan and we have to look at it.
“Our union has been very, very meticulous for some time; in fact, I can say since the inception of this administration that we now use the opportunity to negotiate even far above what is contained in the collective bargaining agreement. The law recognises that the company that wants redundancy should pay three months’ in lieu of notice,” Olanrewaju said.
On the allegation that contrary to a clause shielding union officials from being affected by redundancy exercises, the Unit Chairman and Secretary of Ota Plant were affected by the exercise, Comrade Olanrewaju said it was not true as the officials in question, Comrades Adekunle Oderinde and Samson Agbi respectively, actually opted to be included in the exercise at Nigerian Breweries.
Olarenwaju said: “When I discovered that the Unit Secretary and Chairman of Ota, if you happen to know them or anybody that knows them, ask them; they, on their own volition opted to be included in the redundancy and we are always very, very flexible on that even though we had included in our agreement that clause.
“If some staff said they want to go, we will have no option. If it is a union leader that wanted to go, we don’t make haste to allow it. So that was exactly what happened. The Chairman and the Secretary deliberately even put their names; they didn’t even report; it was later when our State Secretary told us, and we wanted to call them to ask what happened so that we can take it up with the management that they now said it was them that opted to be included. You can confirm that; that was what happened.”
Comrade Olanrewaju spoke on the specific scenarios in Seven-Up and Indomie as well as the issue of casual workers in the food and beverage sector, including the allegation that the union collects check-off dues from the casual workers which he confirmed. Read the full interview here.
Former Ota Unit Chairman speaks
While efforts to get the Secretary of Nigerian Breweries’ Ota Unit of NUFBTE to speak on the claims and counter claims failed, National Record however succeeded in getting the former Ota Unit Chairman, Comrade Adekune Oderinde, to speak on the redundancy as well as his supposed membership of the Redemption Group, the umbrella platform of union members opposed to the elongation of Comrade Oyelekan’s tenure as National President of the union.
Comrade Oderinde, who also confirmed that he has been offered employment by the National Secretariat of NUFBTE effective October 1, 2021, when asked if it is true that he willingly submitted his name for the redundancy exercise, unequivocally said: “That is the situation, I requested for it, that I want my name to be enlisted in the exercise.”
He said he joined the Nigerian Breweries in 1995, and served for 26 years before his recent exit from the company.
When asked if his employment by NUFBTE national secretariat could be the reason for his switching loyalty to the leadership of Comrade Oyelekan as he was a known member of the union’s Redemption Group, Comrade Oderinde said: “No, no! I actually needed to quit because there is always time for everything; a time when you join an organisation and a time for you to quit. I decided on my own volition that I needed to quit that job; that I needed to move on in life.
He said his colleague Unit Secretary, Comrade Samson Agbi, left on retirement as he was up to retirement age, and as a result “requested to be enlisted in the exercise.”
Asked why Agbi should bother to be included in redundancy if he had reached retirement age, Oderinde explained: “When you look at the packages based on the union negotiation, when you weigh it and you see that at least, what does it take if you leave now; is it not better for you to enjoy your retirement than for somebody to come and collect it on your behalf? It will feel as if, I can be useful to myself at this age instead of me to wait until that age when I will no longer be useful to myself, would that be the time that I will be benefiting from my retirement benefit?
“So he felt like he needed to quit and then, it wasn’t him alone as well; there were other people that also requested, like us, to be included. We even put up a mail to appeal to the management to include our names.”
Speaking on his appointment by NUFBTE National Secretariat, Comrade Oderinde said: “As I left the services of Nigerian Breweries, I got a call from the union, they invited me and said: we have seen your role as an active member of the union and now that you are out there, why don’t you come and do this, so I decided to take the offer since I have it in my blood. There is nothing new about it, it is something I have been doing all this while; it is just for me to contribute my little quota to support the efforts of those that are there in order for us to move the struggle forward.”
The former Unit chairman denied being an active member of the Redemption Group. When asked to confirm if he was part of the group, his initial response was “what makes you to say that, if I may ask?,” but when old that his former colleagues said he was an active member of the pro-democracy group in the union opposed to tenure elongation, he said: “Well, I happen to belong to Ogun State council of the union where the state’s chairman there, based on the names that were with him, included our names.
“I wasn’t the admin of that group so my name was included initially and when I found out, I asked them what it was all about and they told me, and I was like, what are we arguing about? There is always time for everything in life, and this life is always turn by turn. I have never been an active partner but I have been, may be, a nominal partner whose [phone] number was included but I have not been participating in it.”
FOBTOB President says redundancy political, speaks on casualisation
For the Food, Beverage and Tobacco Senior Staff Association (FOBTOB), the redundancy exercise was not only unnecessary, it was also political.
In a telephone interview sometime in July, shortly after National Record began this investigation, Comrade Jimoh Oyinbo, the National President of FOBTOB, said from what they heard, the redundancy was purely political.
Comrade Oyinbo, who was reluctant to have the conversation on phone, and had actually insisted that this reporter come down to his office in Lagos until he was told by the reporter that he is based in Abuja; said when he got wind of the exercise in Seven-Up, FOBTOB tried to come in but observed that it was only affecting junior workers.
He admitted that in the redundancy exercise in Nigerian Breweries, some members of FOBTOB voluntarily opted to negotiate their way on the basis of age and number of years they had put in.
When asked if there was redundancy in the food industry, he said: “For junior staff of Seven-Up, yes; I think about 300 staff were asked to go. For Nigerian Breweries, yes, some of our members were affected. At the level of the national office of our union, we were not and won’t be happy if the company is conducting redundancy; no; but somewhere along the line, I think some of the staff, they were considering their age and the number of years they have put into service; so they also negotiated their way when this redundancy matter came up; you understand me?”
Comrade Oyinbo further said: “If it becomes voluntary, there is nothing you can do, that is the more reason why I said it is not an issue that we can’t discuss on phone, because we need to meet at the office for you to get details.”
When this reporter told him that those affected by the redundancy alleged that the exercise was instigated by NUFBTE to throw some workers out of the union, Comrade Oyinbo said from available information, it was political.
“I think it is political; it is purely political. From the information I heard, I think there are camps within the NUFBTE and so those who were considered as traitors to the national office of the union were those who were singled out for that redundancy in Seven-Up,” he said and he went on to condemn the act when he said: “If at the level of the union we can go to that level to negotiate our members out of their jobs, then it defeats the essence of you joining the union because, of course, the national union is there to protect the interest of the workers. If the national union is now the one trying to negotiate their members out, I don’t see the essence [of the union].”
When asked of his response to the situation where the companies sack permanent workers while increasing the intake of casual workers, Comrade Oyinbo admitted that the issue has become a real challenge, particularly with the obvious lack of synergy between NUFBTE and FOBTOB.
“I can’t authoritatively give you the figure; but if you are talking of outsourced staff, yes, I think it is becoming a proliferation in the industry. There is hardly a company you go now in the industry without seeing outsourced workers outnumbering the permanent staff, which is also a concern to us.
“Unfortunately when I came on board, the first thing I was just thinking I should do is how will I bring these people on board? But again, with the crisis at the junior staff level, I am also having a challenge. How I wish their national leadership is responsive to discourse; I would have said let me invite the National President of NUFBTE, let’s sit down and map out strategies of how we can, you know, integrate this set of [outsourced] workers into the mainstream. But of course, with that crisis, I don’t know, but well; I won’t say it is not going to work but somewhere along the line, I think I’m going to give it a try.
When asked on the practice of collecting check-off from casual workers without them getting union services anytime they are being pushed out, Comrade Oyinbo neither refuted nor confirmed the practice.
“Honestly, that is going to be one other level of struggle in the industry, and I can assure you, some of the areas which I am going to concentrate is this outsourced; we call them outsourced staff; the sustainability of gratuity in the industry because as it is now, the employers are clamouring to expunge gratuity from the industry. This will be vehemently resisted; it will be vehemently resisted.”
To be concluded.
