By Victor Ahiuma-Young

Aggrieved workers of one of the leading courier companies in Nigeria, Tranex PLC, Wednesday shut down and crippled the operations at the company’s head office, at Oshodi, Lagos over poor working conditions including non-implementation of the N70, 000 new national minimum wage.

Among other grievances are non-refund of 20 percent deducted salary in June 2024, 12 months of unpaid non-accident bonus, staggered remittances of deducted fund to workers’ Pension Fund Administrators, PFAs, among others.

They displayed several placards with various inscriptions to express their grievances.

Addressing the workers, Deputy President of National Union of Postal and Telecommunication Employees, NUPTE, Bright Ogbonna, lamented that” all efforts at making the management implement the N70, 000 new national minimum wage have been frustrated by the Board of Directors.

According to him, “the workers have been passing through untold hardship as a result of the very poor working conditions instituted by the management. As at today, supervisors in the company earn a total take home of N70, 000, while other workers earn N50, 000 and below. The management has refused to remit deducted workers’ cooperative fund. They have been staggering the remittances of deducted pension fund since 2022. They deducted 20 percent of workers’ salary and refused to refund same since June 2024.

“It is sad that a company that has existed since 1983 with branches across the country with eight branches in Lagos, has only two operational bases in Lagos. These are the head office in Oshodi and a branch at Ogba. Sustained mismanagement has left the company in a state of woes. Workers have been resigning in droves since last year. How can you seized the cooperative fund of workers pooled together for them to assist themselves to the extent that those who have left cannot access their fund?

“To worsen the poor working conditions, the management keeps intimidating and harassing workers who agitate for their rights. How can the management refused to implement the national minimum wage that was signed into law by President Bola Tinubu since last year? Well, we have told the management that this place (head office) will remain shut until workers’ grievances are addressed.”

All efforts to get the management reaction were abortive at the time of this report.
Calls to the Managing Director and his General Manager were not responded