The Management of Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited ( BASL) operators of Murtala Muhammed Domestic Airport Terminal Two (MMA2) has described the shutdown of its terminal by aviation unions as illegal.
In a statement signed by the BASL’s Head, Corporate Communications, Oluwatosin Onalaja, the first private domestic airport terminal operator in Nigerian, claimed that the action of the unions that led to the shutdown of the terminal in the early hours of Tuesday was illegal and unacceptable.
BASL who claimed that the action was carried out contrary to laid down principles of industrial relations and total violation of the laws of the land, alleged that there was no notice of the picketting on the terminal before the unions brought into union members who are not employees of BASL to shutdown the terminal around 2:30am on Tuesday.
“Action of The Unions in Disrupting MMA2 Business Is Clearly Illegal – Management Contrary to laid down principles of industrial relations and in total violation of the laws of Nigeria, our Terminal was shut down at 2:30 AM on 1st November, 2022 by Airport Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN). There was no proper notice of this damaging behaviour.
“The Union brought in members who are not employees of Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL) to prevent the employees of BASL from working. This is also an unlawful action. Our relationship is with union members that are our employees and not external members. This is clearly an illegal action and continues to set a bad precedent in Nigeria,” the statement said.
The terminal operators who however said that the alleged cause of the industrial action was in exercising its fundamental rights on staff management which has nothing to do with the union and the request by the union to apply the fundamentals of the condition of Service signed with the union before Sacking any worker is not online with the labour laws in Nigeria.
According to BASL: “The alleged cause of this industrial action is our decision to lay off some of our staff who we consider unproductive. It is our inherent right to manage our business in the most prudent manner and we should not be intimidated by external forces as is being done in this case. The Unions are also claiming that we should apply the conditions of service which we signed in June, 2021 retrospectively. Again, this is contrary to established rules of industrial relations and the laws of Nigeria.”
Bi-Courtney alleged that ATSSSAN deregarded a court order stopping it from taking individual actions at the terminal before embarking on the alleged illegal action.
“On being made aware of a court order issued by the National Industrial Court on 31st October, 2022, the Unions disregarded the order and continues to lock up our premises and disturbing the operations of the Terminal in a clear violation of the court order. This is a recipe for anarchy.”
While it insisted that it remains a law abiding entity, BASL however apologized to airlines and air passengers whose flights from and to the airport terminal were affected by the action of the unions.
“We remain very law-abiding citizens and use this medium to apologise to all our clients and stakeholders for the totally unacceptable behaviour of the Unions,” BASL stated.
