Embattled Dana Air Sacks Several Workers Without Paying Salary Backlogs – Saharareporters

Dana Air Fires Workers Without Paying Salary Backlogs ‘Amid Move To Shut Down Operations’

Dana Air has sacked several workers without paying their salary backlogs, some of the affected workers have told SaharaReporters.

Though the management of the airline recently blamed it on the ongoing operational audit by regulatory authorities, the affected employees said it is part of the move by the airline to shut down operations.

SaharaReporters reported in April that the Nigerian government had directed the management of the airline to suspend its commercial operations over safety concerns.

This directive was given by the Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo following an incident that happened at Murtala Muhammadu International Airport, Lagos State.

SaharaReporters had earlier reported how a commercial aircraft belonging to Dana Air skidded off the runway at the airport.

A photograph obtained by SaharaReporters captured the moment after the aircraft skidded off the runway.

The passengers were evacuated safely and no casualty was recorded from the incident. However, the incident raised concerns regarding the fitness of Dana Air aircraft for domestic commercial operations in the country.

However, some of the workers accused the Group Managing Director/CEO of Dana Group of Companies, Jacky Hathiramani of causing the issues by “micromanaging every department of the company”.

Regarding the issues, one of the dismissed workers said, “What happened in April about the runway excursion happened and rightly so, the authorities were able to find out the root cause of all these problems, and it still stems from the fact that he micromanages every department and things they are supposed to buy, he won’t buy them.

“Our warehouse for spares is practically empty because he doesn’t buy spares and he flies one of the oldest planes.

“That thing happened at the end of April and he didn’t say anything to the staff members. Five days later, they sent an email to staff members that he was putting all the staff on leave without pay.

“What is leave without pay? Leave without pay based on when we close findings on the NCAA (Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority) audit and all of that? Pay us our April salary, he refused.

“Days after, we started getting an email from the HR of the department telling all of us that our services were no longer required.”

Another source said,

We
were like okay, every businessman reserves the right to disengage at
any point they choose but there are rules that guide this.

“We
have all these captured in our staff letter and even in law, if you are
disengaging me, you pay me one month in lieu with notice. You would have
also paid me salaries for the months I have worked.

“But now you
owe me salaries. You are not paying me one month in lieu notice and you
are asking me to leave. Aside from that, from inception since 2008,
they have been deducting pensions from staff members but they have never
remitted it. They don’t remit pension deductions, they don’t remit
taxes.

“We are saying okay, you want to lay all of us off, fine.
You have new investors and the new investors require that part of their
condition will be to overhaul your staff and in your opinion, overhaul
means sacking everybody, fine, pay us what is right to us.

“Pay
us our benefits and all the deductions that you have made from our
salaries for pensions and taxes and we will go. Is that a problem? It is
your right to disengage us but it is our right to collect our benefits.
Our people have worked in that airline for up to 15 years.”

The workers told SaharaReporters that they were planning to collectively engage a senior lawyer who is a human rights activist to file a legal action against the company.

One of the sources said, “What we are planning now is that we are coming together. Instead of going differently to meet lawyers, we are trying to engage a renowned Nigerian human rights activist who is also a SAN, but we want to do everything in a systematic way.

“On Tuesday, we are going to start a three-day rally in front of Dana’s head office because the information we have now is that they have started sending all the Indians out of the country.

“He is planning to shut down the business completely. We have to make sure that before he shuts down the business, he should pay us our money.

“They are trying to shut down completely because he is claiming that he doesn’t have funds to run the company except from investors and it is premised on that that he is asking people to go.

Source:- Saharareporters