By  Victor Ahiuma-Young

ORGANISED Labour has petitioned the Director-General, DG, of the Directorate of State Service, DSS, over alleged intimidation and harassment of labour leaders by Rivers State DSS. Condemning perceived unprofessional conduct of men and officials of DSS in Rivers State, labour claimed it was “yet to recover from the traumatic experience of the intimidation, harassment and high handedness by Rivers State DSS.”

On the platform of National Union of Electricity Employees, NUEE, labour urged the DG to investigate the activities of his men in Rivers State, noting that the union had lost confidence in Rivers’ DSS operatives . In the petition, NUEE General Secretary, Joe Ajaero, claimed that operatives of Rivers State DSS exhibited unprofessional conduct when members of NUEE picketed the installations of Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company, PHEDC.

According to Ajaero, “We are yet to recover from the traumatic experience inherent from the Directorate’s unprofessionalism as exemplified by their intimidation, harassment and high handedness against the union officials who were agitating for a level playing ground for industrial and labour relations to thrive in the company vis-à-vis all Nigerian extant labour laws and International Labour Organisation, ILO, Conventions.

We wonder why the Directorate would turn itself to a court on labour issues and compel the union officials under duress to sign an undertaking or face detention in the presence of the PHEDC management, when they had followed all known labour procedures before embarking on the picketing. Worse still, what transpired between the leadership of the Directorate and PHEDC when they had a private meeting while our officials were still held hostage could be better imagined than said. That was why the management, emboldened by their relationship with the state DSS, sacked more workers after the suspended action.

“It was expected that the Directorate should have facilitated a meeting outside their office, preferably in a conducive environment with all the statutory bodies being represented and the issues raised as our grievances dialogued upon. But it appears the ‘PHEDC’s influence’ overwhelmed the Directorate hence the display of unprofessional conduct.

“For the records, please note that our men were coerced to suspend the action under threat and insecure circumstances. Therefore, we are formally notifying you that our action will soon resume and we will not give in to any amount of harassment, threat, intimidations or blackmail unless PHEDC management comes to terms with the  reality of allowing the workers to be unionised.”