GX FOOD LIMITED: The Late Oyo Ex-governor’s Company Sacks Workers Without any Benefit

• CDWR Demands the Payments of all Entitlements due to the Sacked Workers and Calls on the State Leadership of NLC, TUC and ULC to Intervene!

Barely three days after the demise of Senator Abiola Ajimobi, the ex-Governor of Oyo State who also doubled as the owner and Chairman of the GX FOOD LIMITED, no fewer than 15 poor workers of the company were sacked by the Mr Babatunde Arowosegbe-led management of the company without payment of entitlements and benefits due to them while another two poor workers were arbitrarily dismissed.

By Abbey Trotsky

The two dismissed workers are Mr Adegoke Ayobami and Mr Qusim Adewale. They were dismissed without fair hearing. They were given query letters on the 29th of June, 2020 by the Company’s Human Resource Manager, Mr Oladapo, and compelled to respond under duress within 20 minutes. The allegation was that they divulged private information that borders on the confidentiality of the company on their respective private pages on Facebook. Subsequently, they were issued a dismissal letter on the same day of 29th of June, 2020 specifically at the point when they were submitting their response to the query.

CDWR condemns this kind of jungle justice specifically the act of forcing workers to respond to query under duress and their subsequent dismissal based on the same response without creating sufficient avenues for fair hearing and following the labour act. We hereby demand an immediate reversal of the dismissals.

Before the arbitrary dismissal of workers and termination of the appointment, workers in GX FOOD LIMITED had been at loggerhead with Mr Babatunde Arowosegbe-led management of the company over indecent labour practices and violation of the Labour Act. These include: arbitrary deductions of 50% of their monthly salaries from June 2019 to March 2020; non-payment of their monthly salaries from April to June 2020 and employment of workers with terms of employment which are at variance with the Labour Act.

We condemn the termination of the affected GX workers without the payment of the deductions made from their salary from June 2019 to March 2020 and also their monthly salaries from April to June 2020. We, therefore, demand the immediate payment of all these entitlements and benefits.

We also call on the leadership of organised labour in Oyo state, NLC TUC and ULC as well as pro-masses organisations and activists for an immediate intervention to ensure workers get their entitlements and end the indecent labour practice at GX Foods.