AUPCTRE FCT elects new leadership

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Com Benjamin Anthony, AUPCTRE President

Com Benjamin Anthony, AUPCTRE President

The Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees (AUPCTRE) FCT Council held its 6th Quadrennial Delegate Conference on Wednesday 28 March 2018 at Abuja.

The delegate conference which attracted workplace representatives from all the AUPCTRE branches in the FCT had 195 delegates in attendance. Also in attendance were some veterans of the union, were led by Com S.O.Z Ejiofor, the pioneering AUPCTRE General Secretary. The President of AUPCTRE Com. Anthony Benjamin and the Secretary General Com. Leke  Zambuk equally graced the occasion. Com. Anthony Benjamin commended the Council for organizing the delegates Conference within the constitutionally stipulated period despite challenges encountered.

He said in the tradition of AUPCTRE, Conferences are essentially dedicated to critically reviewing the unions activities within the last four years, so as to identify the union’s successes and shortcomings as well as its strength and weakness with a view to charting a new course that will guide the activities of the new leadership that will emerge at the end of the conference, in the interests of rank and file members.

He also categorically stated that the primary objective of unions is to defend the economic interest of their members in all legitimate ways possible, including through collective bargaining, trade dispute, and protests.

The introduction of such privatization strategies as Public Private Partnership (PPP) in water was castigated as a meant to make life more unbearable for poor working-class people, despite the resounding failures of the model.

Delegates identified the character of the Nigerian ruling class as exploitative and parasitic, and  called on the working class as a whole to rise up and fight to win to defend the cause of the poor masses against such ruinous bosses.

On a final note the Conference noted that neoliberal globalization has done a great havoc to workers not only economically and politically but as well ideologically. The increasing spread of precarious work and increasing unemployment are being used to try break the solidarity of the working-class, with the view of “half a loaf is better than none”.

Thus, while some groups of workers are complaining of under payment or non-payment of wages, others who have been unemployed for ages are fighting to get even these inadequate wages. The situation gets worse with unemployed youth being lured into anti-social activities including crime and thuggery.

All these point at the unsustainability of the capitalist system. It is throwing the younger generation into the abyss of barbarism even from today. We thus must fight to bring an end to this evil system to win a better world.

by Peter ADEJOBI

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