SUMAL FOOD WORKERS’ STRUGGLE: CDWR set to commemorate the “World Day for Decent Work with a Protest on Casualization and Persecution of Abbey Trotsky”
- We appeal for a financial support and Solidarity!
The Campaign for Democratic and Workers Rights, CDWR, Oyo State Chapter, plans to intensify its campaign against casualization at workplaces and the state persecution of Comrade Abiodun Bamigboye, popularly known as Abbey Trotsky, in connivance with the management of Sumal Foods and leadership of the company’s trade union.
By Yusuf Salaudeen CDWR, Oyo State
It is no news that casualization, an indecent employment condition, has become regular practice at many workplaces in Ibadan and its environs, and also across the country. It enslaves and exploits workers while denying them regularised employment status with good pay including right to join and belong to trade union of choice.
The CDWR has been at the forefront of a campaign and struggle against casualization. It is this struggle that forms the basis for different court cases instituted against Comrade Abbey Trotsky. Abbey Trotsky who is the Oyo State Coordinator of the Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR) and the acting National Chair of the Socialist Party of Nigeria, SPN has been under a string of state prosecution since 2019 simply because of the support and solidarity given by members of the Oyo State Chapter of CDWR to the protest and strike embarked upon by contract/casual workers of Sumal Food Limited on 2nd and 3rd October 2018.
Abbey Trotsky suffered different harassments which include arrests and detentions by the police and State Secret Service known as the DSS for over a period of three weeks. He was arrested 8 times by the police and secret service between 19 December 2018 and 9 June 2019 and later forced to report weekly at the office of the AIG Zone 11 in Osogbo, Osun State, between 28 May and 7 June after which he was arraigned in court on 7 June 2019 first with four-count criminal charge. The lingering matter over trumped-up criminal charges has been presided over by five different magistrates with over seven different arraignment and adjourned not fewer than 17 times.
Aside the criminal matter whose next adjournment date is the 6th of September, 2023 at the Magistrate Court 6, Iyagnaku, Ibadan is another civil matter which was instituted against Abbey Trotsky at the National Industrial Court (NIC), Ibadan by over 20 outsourcing companies who are known for indecent labour practices of recruiting workers under a casual or contract employment condition for virtually all of the leading factories in Oyo State.
The motive behind the use of security operatives and judiciary to harass Abbey is to deter members of the CDWR from intervening in the plight of poor casual workers and also to strike fear into the heart of mass of casual workers. However, the intimidation has not prevented the CDWR and its members to continue to defend the right of mass of workers. No fewer than 5 struggles of casual workers in Oyo State from different workplaces had been supported and strengthened with the intervention of the CDWR since the prosecution of Abbey Trotsky started.
The CDWR remains undaunted and committed to the struggle against casualization and other forms of indecent labour practices in workplaces in the state and across the country. The CDWR and its supporters will organise a peaceful protest to the Oyo State House of Assembly and Ibadan office of Federal Ministry of Labour against casualization and the continued use of judiciary to harass Abbey Trotsky as a way of commemorating the 2023 World Day for Decent Work on the 7th of October.
We hereby appeal to trade unions, pro-labour organisations and activists for financial support and also to join us in solidarity in the effort to deepen the campaign against casualization and other forms of indecent labour practices in the state.
Contact the CDWR at [email protected]