By Longtong Ibrahim Kaduna (Nigeria) – More than 500 Casual employees of the Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company (KEDC) on Tuesday stormed the zonal headquarters of the Company protesting over what they called unjust dismissal and non-payment of their three months salaries.
The Casual employees, who protested along Ahamadu Bello way to the Zonal headquarters, barricaded the KEDC entrance; carrying placards with different inscriptions to express their grievances.
When the situation was getting out of hand, the police dispersed the crowd with teargas, but they later regrouped and protested peacefully.
The protesters alleged that their dismissal was unfair, after been promised permanent employment in the recently conducted employment exercise by the company.
According to one of the protesters, Aisha Musa, the management of the company asked them to vacate the premises of the company without payment of their three months salary.
She said, she had been a casual staff of the company for ten years.
Also speaking, Ahmad Mohammed said, so many of them have worked for several years without been considered, adding that he had worked for more than 17 years with letter of confirmation as a casual staff.
Ahmad demands that his severance package should be paid.
Head communications unit, Abdulazeez Abdullahi in a response said, when the company took over from its predecessor last December, they didn’t want to contravene the national and international labor laws, but gave opportunity to the casual staff to apply for a dignified employment.
“In compliance with the extant national and international labor laws, the casual workers were given the opportunity to apply for full and more dignified employment, where they applied and went through the recruitment processes and the successful ones among them were employed.” He said
He described the protesters as those who didn’t meet up the employment requirement, adding that, “an opportunity was given to both internal staff and fresh candidates to gain employment.”