By VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG
LAGOS – INDUSTRIAL unrest is again imminent at the nation’s ports  two weeks after the seaports were shut down by workers over  the refusal of terminal operators to review their wages upward since June 2010 when the subsisting conditions of service elapsed.

Vanguard investigation revealed that dockworkers have become very restive  and agitated as there is no indication that the Management of Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, which met with the leaders of Maritime Workers of Nigeria, MWUN, and leaders of Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria, STOAN, to find a solution to the dispute is doing anything to resolve the issue barely a week to the month end deadline given by the workers.

The leaders of MWUN had at the meeting with the management of NPA threatened to begin an indefinite strike at the end of March without notice should the government and NPA fail to prevail on members of STOAN to review the elapsed condition of service and upward review the workers wages.

It will be recalled that commercial and other activities at the nation’s ports were on March 8, shut down by aggrieved dockworkers over the refusal of the terminal operators to review upward their wages since June 2010.

The industrial action which  paralysed operations at Lagos, Warri, Calabar and Port Harcourt ports with the exception of Onne Ports, where the action did not take place, stalled loading and off-loading of berthed vessels among other operations.

President-General of MWUN, Comrade Emmanuel Nted who confirmed the restiveness of members of Dockworkers’ branch of the union over the delay, called on the management of NPA and government to hasten up and get the matter resolved to avoid another round of industrial unrest that would do nobody any good.

Collaborating, President of Dockworkers branch of MWUN, Comrade  Adewale Adeyanju, lamented that increasingly, “I have been receiving the heat from workers and they are asking questions which I must confess, have no answer to yet. The situation is very tense and threatening.”

During the March 8, shut down, Vessels which were being discharged the previous day that was not completed were left unattended to.

Most of the offices at the various terminals were opened but the workers were restricted to paper work.
Helpless importers, Customs agents and other users of the ports who were had business engagements in the ports expressed sadness in the development, and lamented their loses.