THE National Industrial Court, Abuja, on Friday ordered an employer of a security man, David Lorember, to pay him his 51 months’ salary arrears within 30 days.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that the salary arrears amounted to N816,000.

Lorember, the claimant who was employed by Jayccee Property Ltd. since 2009, approached the court to seek redress after his appointment terminated in October, 2017, without payment of his salary arrears of 51 months.

The judge, Justice Sanusi Kado, said ” although the claimant was never given a letter of employment, which is an offence under the Labour Act, he was issued a staff identity card by the defendant.

“This ultimately means the claimant was in the employment of the defendant.”

The judge also said that the court cannot accept the defendant’s claim that the claimant ceased to be his employee in 2013, when the property he was guarding was given to an independent contractor to manage.

Kado said there was no evidence to this claim before the court as the contractor who started managing the estate in 2012 did not start paying the claimant until January  2013.

The judge therefore, ordered the defendant to pay the claimant N816,000 being his salary arrears for 51 months, covering August  2013 to Oct. 2017.

He also ordered the payment of N16,000 being his one month salary in lieu of notice of termination of the claimant’s appointment.

The judge awarded N100,000 cost against the defendant as cost of prosecuting the suit.

Oluwafemi Okunbo, the claimant’s counsel in his submission said the contention was that the defendant claimed that sometime in 2012, the property the claimant was guarding was given to one Mr Sunny to manage.

He affirmed that the said Sunny started paying the claimant his monthly salary of N16,000, from January until July, 2013, when he stopped managing the property.

Okunbo also averred that each time his client demanded for his salary from the defendant after Sunny left the estate, he was always told to be patient and he would be paid all his salaries when the fortune of the organisation improved.

The counsel equally said his client was never informed by the defendant that he was no longer in their employment, nor was his ID card withdrawn by the defendant.

Okunbo further said the claimant was still occupying the gatehouse of the property and was carrying out some other duties on  behalf of the defendant, until Oct. 2017 when he was thrown out of the property.

He said that the defendant threw him out of the property without paying his outstanding salaries.

The defence counsel, Ndubuisi Augustine, on his part, said when the estate was handed over to Mr Sunny to manage in 2012, the claimant was informed of his deployment to another of the defendant’s property, but he declined.

Augustine said, instead, the claimant reached an agreement with Sunny and was retained as his staff.

According to the counsel, the claimant ceased to be an employee of the defendant the moment he refused to move to where he was transferred to and he started receiving his salary from Sunny. (NAN)

– Jan. 18, 2018 @ 12:39 GMT |