The fortunes of RUSAL-ALSCON in Ikot Abasi, Akwa Ibom State, which was sold off to Russians under a bogus privatisation scheme, have nose-dived in recent weeks following a labour crisis by its Nigerian workforce.
The fortunes of RUSAL-ALSCON in Ikot Abasi, Akwa Ibom State, which was sold off to Russians under a bogus privatisation scheme, have nose-dived in recent weeks following a labour crisis by its Nigerian workforce.
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Production at ALSCON, the Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria, has been at a standstill in the past two weeks following an indefinite industrial action embarked upon by hundreds of the company’s workers who engaged in a peaceful demonstration.
Some of the placards displayed before our correspondent read: “Nigerians are not fools,” ”No gratuity, No Rusal,” “Sub-contract staff must be converted,” “Managing Director, sign our collective agreement,” and “Enough of this Zombie.”
The privatization process for the plant by the Obasanjo administration, as in other cases, was enmeshed in corruption, leading its being sold-off at a fraction of its value even with higher bids from US investors that had expressed interest in buying it.
The corruption in the exercise recently caught the attention of the National Assembly which embarked on a probe of the transaction but nothing has come out of the much-ballyhooed televised event.
Addressing the workers who assembled in front of the administrative building, the Joint Chairman, ALSCON Labour Movement, Comrade Kelechi Otuh, told them it was unfortunate that despite one week of the strike, the management has not seen the need to sign the agreement.
“As I am talking to you, management has not signed the agreement. We are not going to sign anything you the workers have not agreed on. All that the management told us is that we should accept their offer then we can talk about the gratuity and we have told them so,” Otuh stated.
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