Thirteen (13) former employees of Entebbe Handling Services Limited (ENHAS) have dragged the company to the Industrial Court, seeking payment of over shillings 3.7 billion in salary and benefits.
The former ENHAS employees purport that the money is for the period when they were unlawfully terminated from service until retirement age (55 years).
They are Robert Luyimbazi, Yofes Atobua Dragudi, Sostene Echodu, Nelson Adriiko, Edwin Epeduno, John Robert Okwii, Moses Bayo, Emmanuel Engabwa, Fred Wasirwa, Christopher Oworinawe, Alex Ronald Bigirwa, Akim Butele and Yuda Sekyanzi.
They filed the case against the company at the Industrial Court on April 3, 2024, through Bwanika and Company Advocates.
The claimants were ENHAS permanent employees working as handling agents between 2002 to 2019. They were earning different salaries ranging between shillings 772,505 and 1.2 million.
Court documents indicate that the claimants were working under the ramp services department of ENHAS and remained under the same department until they were terminated.
The respondents action of terminating the claimants as permanent employees was wrong, unfair, unlawful and in contravention of the Employment Act 2006,” court documents read in parts.
The applicants claim that they suffered injuries due to operational occurrences and were not compensated, contrary to sections 3 and 11 of the Workers Compensation Act.
The claimants say in July 2023, they were informed by the company officials that the United Nations (UN) Monusco business was no more and that it should not be their concern since they had no contract with it.
The respondents officials promised that very soon they would come up with the new relocation programs of its whole staff who were working on the UN freights,” one of the applicants Luyimbazi said.
They say the relocations of the staff were subsequently pinned on the company notice board to take effect from August 1, 2023, which showed how 39 employees had been moved to the different departments such as the passenger service, ramp, Cargo, among others.
However, to their utter shock, on August 29, 2023, the ENHAS human resource officer issued them termination letters, saying the company had reached a consensus with the labour ministry to terminate them on grounds of redundancy.
In the termination letters, ENHAS claimed that due to the unexpected loss of UN Monusco business, they lost revenue which affected the company’s operations and necessitated the implementation of measures to keep the company afloat.
