The staff at Alport Banjul gave management a 28-day ultimatum on Tuesday. They say the company hasn’t fully met the terms of their transfer from the Gambia Ports Authority (GPA). The workers said they would sit down and strike if their problems weren’t fixed by the deadline.
Adama Jatta, who is the President of the Staff Association, read a petition to Ousman Jobarteh, who is the Managing Director of the Gambia Ports Authority, Alport management, and other important people. He said that the transfer was first agreed to as long as the employees’ current terms and conditions of service stayed the same. But she did say that this agreement has not been fully followed.
The staff says that many of the promises made during the transition have not been kept, especially those about hiring important people and having management represent them. The petition says that it was agreed that Gambian nationals would hold some senior positions to protect the interests of local staff.
Jatta said, “Gambians would be in charge of Human Resources at Alport and be the deputy chief executive officer to make sure that Gambian employees’ needs are met.”
The workers also had issues with how salaries were handled, promotions, staff loans, and internal service rules. They say that these problems have not been fixed since Alport took over payroll management.
The petition said, “These rules have not always been followed or enforced since Alport took over managing salaries.”
Now, the staff wants either the full implementation of the original transfer agreement or the process to be stopped. They want GPA to take back control of all human resources issues, such as managing salaries. They also want all transferred employees to be fully reinstated under GPA.Jatta said, “We want the full transfer process as laid out in the contract and full disclosure of all staff-related matters within the agreement.”
She said, “All of our HR problems will go back to GPA, including paying salaries. If not, all of the staff who were moved will go back to GPA.” Alport will only tell us how to run things until then.
The workers also said that if their demands weren’t met within 28 days, they would go on strike.We are officially telling you that if our demands are not fully met and put into action within twenty-eight days, we will go on a sit-down strike.
In the meantime, the workers said they would do less work and only work during the hours set by the Labour Act 2023.As the Labour Act 2023 says we should, we will only work forty-eight (48) hours a week.
