12 YEARS ON, WORKERS LAID OFF FROM KADUNA TEXTILE LIMITED YET TO COLLECT BENEFITS: CDWR demands payment of workers entitlement without further delay

By Chinedu Bosah, Publicity Secretary, CDWR

Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR) condemns the denial of workers their benefits by the 19 northern state governments and the management of the defunct Kaduna Textile Limited since 2002. The same thing happened to many textile factories in the country whereby thousands of workers were laid off without adequate payment of their entitlement.

The CDWR calls on the 19 northern state governments and the management of the defunct Kaduna Textile Limited to immediately pay the entitlement of the lay off staff of the KTL without any delay.

It has been 12 years since the closure of Kaduna Textile Limited, but the workers who worked tirelessly for the company before it collapsed continue to suffer. The workers had earlier gone to court challenging the management. The court gave ruling in September 2005 that the sum of N687, 073,346 should be paid to the former workers of KTL as their entitlements, but nothing has been paid till date.

The textile industry used to be one of the biggest employers of labour having employed over one million workers in the early 1980s but have collapsed to about 20,000 workers presently. Factors responsible for the collapse are corrupt management, absence of basic infrastructure, dwindling purchasing power, inability to compete with imported textile materials etc.

CDWR calls on the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) to champion the struggle for payment of the workers’ entitlements. Bailout of these companies to the tune of N150 billion has not fundamentally changed the situation as some of these funds if not most will not be used for the purpose of revitalizing the industry. The Labour movement should also spearhead the struggle for massive funding of textile industry with democratic control and management of elected representatives of workers as well as rebuilding basic infrastructure like uninterrupted power supply as the best way to rebuild the textile industry.