The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has stated that it’ll most likely resume the indefinite strike embarked if the Federal Government fails to reach a consensus with them by midnight on Tuesday.
Recall that organised labour embarked on a nation strike a week ago but was suspended for one week for a further negotiation with the Federal Government, and the one week deadline will expire by midnight on Tuesday.
Speaking on Channels TV on Monday, Chris Onyeka, Assistant General Secretary, NLC warned that if the Federal Government fails to reach a consensus with the organised labour by the expiration of the deadline, they may most likely revert to the status quo.
He said, “The Federal Government including the National Assembly have the call now, it’s not our call. Our demand is there for them to look at and send an Executive Bill to National Assembly and NASS should look at what we’ve demanded, the various facets of the law and come up with a National Minimum Wage Act that will meet our demand and if that doesn’t meet our demand, as you know we’ve already given the Federal Government a one week notice to look at the issues and the one week expires on Tuesday (today). If we don’t see a tangible response from the Federal Government, the organs of organised labour will meet to decide on the next line of action.
“So, it’s in the hands of the organs to say what our next line of action will be. These organs are made up of people from every part of Nigeria, every religion in Nigeria and they’ll meet to decide the direction to go and that’s dependent on what the National Assembly and the Federal Government will do before the end of the deadline by midnight tomorrow (Tuesday).
“There was a pause for an indefinite strike. If you put a pause and the organs decide that we should remove that pause that means we’ll go back to what was in existence before, which was an indefinite strike.
Onyeka added, “It’s also important that I use this opportunity to also clarify that when workers embark on withdrawal of service, what happens is that the machines won’t turn on themselves. The machines will stop operating and that is what happens all over the world. When workers withdraw their services things won’t be the same and that is what we’ve been doing.”
Responding to the comments by the Senate President and the Secretary of Government of Federation (SGF), who described the switching off of the national grid as sabotage and treasonable felony respectively, Onyeka said, “Our position has been made already in the media. The SGS statement was unfortunate. For somebody who occupies the sensitive position that he occupies, he should understand that he shouldn’t make such statements when there’s an ongoing negotiation because it would influence and create a situation of aggression and the word from the Senate President is also unfortunate which was why we said that the Senate President and the SGF should look in the mirror for those who are committing treasonable felony in Nigeria and those who are sabotaging the economy. We’re not sabotaging the economy. They should look in the mirror to see those who are sabotaging the economy. The ones sabotaging the economy are not in the workplaces. They’re the ones that wear “agbada”. They’re the ones who drive in expensive convoys all over Nigeria.
On whether N100,000 is fair, he said, “Can you survive on N100,000? Would you survive on the present cost of a bag of rice?
He also mentioned a few states that are not yet paying the N30,000 minimum wage to include Kwara, Anambra and three others. He said that it’s criminal and lawless for them not to pay. “The Federal Government should have taken action against them,”he added.
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