Kogi Workers’ Strike: Labour Calls on Traditional Rulers to Wade Into Dispute

351
Spread the love

The organized Labour in Kogi State on Saturday called on prominent traditional rulers in the state to wade into the ongoing industrial dispute between them and the state government.

The Trade Union Congress (TUC), Nigeria Labour Congress ( NLC) and the Joint Public Service Negotiating Council ( JPSNC) made the call in a statement jointly issued and circulated among media houses in Lokoja.

The unions said that their call for the intervention of the traditional rulers followed a recent charge given by President Muhammadu Buhari to traditional rulers to mount pressure on state governors to pay workers salary.

According to the statement signed by Mr Olakunle Faniyi, Mr Kolawole James and Mr Isah Abubakar of TUC, NLC and JPSNC respectively, the traditional rulers cannot turn their face the other way when thousands of their subjects are dying avoidable death.

It will be recalled that workers in the state embarked on Sept. 22 commenced an indefinite strike to Press home their demands which include payment of outstanding salary arrears no leave bonuses among others.

The workers called on the Kogi State government to set up a team to dialogue with them over their demands instead of embarking on frivolous propaganda that will yield no positive result.

Faniyi, James and Abubakar also frowned at the use of threat, intimidation and dishing out of outright falsehood about their dispute by the agents of the state government.

According to them, the threat of no work no pay in a circular sent to ministries, departments and agencies by Mrs Folashade Ayoade , the Secretary to the State Government will not in anyway make the workers to abandon the struggle.

“Mrs Folashade Ayoade threatened to implement no work, no pay policy which she claimed was a provision of the Trade Dispute Act but the SSG failed to mention the act or law that empowers government to deny workers their salaries for 21 months,” the statement said.

The state government had refused to invite the leaderships of the unions for negotiation following what it called harsh words contained in the strike notice served on it by the workers.

The Director -General, media and publicity to the governor, Mr Kingsley Fanwo in a statement insisted that the signatories to the labour’s letter to the government were not civil servants in the state.


Spread the love



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *