NLC President Omar -Govt fails to persuade NLC, TUC on action
The stage seems set for another nationwide strike as the Federal Government – Labour parley yesterday failed to stave off the planned three-day warning strike.
The meeting ended in a stalemate last night. Unless today’s meeting between Labour leaders and governors turns the tide, the economy will be paralysed for three days beginning from tomorrow.
The government promised to:
•pay the N18,000 minimum wage to workers on grade levels 01 to 06 immediately;
•pay workers on levels 07-17 after the passage of a supplementary budget; and
•pay the new wage to only core civil servants
But Labour rejected the proposals.
Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Anyim Pius Anyim chaired the meeting in his office at Shehu Shagari House, Abuja.
Minister of Labour and Productivity Emeka Wogu; chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum Rotimi Amaechi, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President Abdulwahed Omar; Trade Union Congress (TUC) President General Peter Esele, Director General, Budget Office, Dr. Bright Okogu and others attended the meeting.
Wogu told the workers’ representatives that the government shifted its ground by accepting to pay across board, but the immediate challenge is that because the new wage was misinterpreted, the government only included grade levels one to six in this year’s budget. He urged labour to be patient for it to be included in next year’s budget.
“A lot has changed. We have agreed with your position to review the table. The issue now is the funding. We have also agreed to pay across board,” he told the union chiefs.
NLC Deputy President Promise Adewusi said the government was adopting a divide-and-rule approach by offering to pay some workers now and others later.
He said the NLC may boycott today’s meeting with the governors.
According to him, the Labour leadership had discovered that the government wanted to engage Labour leaders in Abuja to prevent them from mobilising workers for the warning strike.
His words: “If there is going to be a strike on Wednesday, all workers in public and private sectors will be involved. First, I have come to know that nothing is impossible. Almost N100billion for INEC. It will not be impossible for a few billions for Nigerian workers. If there is an emergency, government rises to it. Let it rise to this. What I am hearing and seeing is not giving me the confidence that the strike will not hold on Wednesday. Labour expected an agreement with government; if that will be done, we will be very happy to leave this place.”
To Anyim, there is no problem as the Federal Government has agreed to all that the workers demand. He said because the labour leaders should agree with the government’s plan to pay level seven to 17 next year.
“We have agreed to what you said; you should agree to ours,” he told the union chiefs.
Obviously to show a good example as the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), Amaechi yesterday ordered the payment of the minimum wage.
Amaechi gave the directive at the Alfred Diete-Spiff Civic Centre, Port Harcourt, while opening the state’s Civil Service Week/Awards’ Day.
He pleaded with other governors to pay the wage to avert a strike.
Amaechi, who was represented by his deputy Tele Ikuru, said his administration would deliver on its mandate of ensuring that workers get the best.
The Abia State chapter of the NLC said there was no going back on the strike.
Its Chairman, Comrade Sylvanus Eyeh, accused government of “making empty promises with the minimum wage”, and said workers were running out of patience.
Eyeh said: “They have been telling us they will pay but till when? We are demanding that the minimum wage will take effect from the 1st of April, 2011 taking into consideration that the President assented to it in March. We have waited for so long and workers are becoming impatient, knowing full well the cost of living in Abia State today.
“Even traders have skyrocketed their prices, yet the money we have not seen. We are calling on Abia State government to implement this minimum wage urgently without which we will be left with no alternative than to obey our principal, the Labour house in Abuja, which has directed all workers to down tools with effect from Wednesday.”
In Ondo State, workers yesterday said the on-going strike would continue till the state government honours the agreement on payment of salary relativity to workers.
The agreement was signed between the state government and the Joint Negotiating Council (JNC) on July 1 by the ruling Labour Party (LP) administration.
The Labour unions, in a communiqué at the end of its emergency meeting in Akure, condemned alleged antics of the government since May 1, 2009.
“We regret that a government enthroned by workers on the platform of LP is 100 per cent anti-labour, thereby negating the principles, philosophy and ideologies underscoring the formation of LP.
“Governor Olusegun Mimiko should tell the world whether the minimum wage was not in existence on June 20, 2011 when the state government entered into an agreement with labour on the implementation of salary relativity before minimum wage,” the statement said.
At a stakeholder’s forum at the weekend, Mimiko called on well meaning indigenes to the State to prevail on the workers to reciprocate his administration’s commitment to their welfare by calling off the strike.
The strike entered its fourth day, paralysing all ministries, departments and agencies as well as local government.
Members of the State Executive of the union, which comprise workers in the public sector, declared the strike in Ibadan yesterday after their meeting.
The meeting was presided over by the council’s chairman, Mr. Nurudeen Arowolo.
While justifying the industrial action, the workers alleged that the state government reneged on agreements reached with them on the new minimum wage on four occasions.
They explained that the strike became necessary as the government’s failure to keep an agreement could no longer be tolerated.
The strike is expected to paralyse activities at all public premises.
Chairman Bashiru Olanrewaju said the strike planned for tomorrow stands.
Bauchi State Governor Isa Yuguda said some states cannot afford the N18,000 wage but such states are ready to sit down with the NLC, open their books and agree on what is payable.
He said what the governors agreed last Saturday was that the implementation of the new wage is “doable, when able”.
He asked the NLC not to embark on blind agitation for N18, 000 wage in all the 36 states.
He said: “Well, we have all agreed that it (the N18, 000 wage) is something doable, when able. As far as I am concerned, N18, 000 is even too small for the average Nigerian worker. If we can even add more, we should do that.
“Labour knows the sources of funds of states and allocation of funds. They know how much we get and what we spend with many competing needs.
“There are states, like Lagos and Rivers, whose Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) runs into billions of Naira. If I were the governor of those states, I will certainly pay N50, 000 or N80, 000. There is nothing as good as investing in human resources.
“I also believe that there are states that can pay less than N18, 000. There are some states, from what I gathered from some of our colleagues, that the revenue that they are getting is not enough to pay the staff of the local governments, let alone that of civil servants.
“We know the truth, we know the facts and we run away from the facts. We have an army of unemployed graduates in millions. It is scary, having university graduates without jobs. And we are all running away from the facts. If I don’t have money to pay, do I print money to pay?
“All these labour leaders, are they not human beings? Why do they not fight for deregulation when they know that they are also going to be beneficiaries of the new minimum wage? If we are not careful with this country, it will collapse.
“There is no where in the world you borrow to finance recurrent expenditure (salaries and wages). If you are doing that, you will fail. When are we going to start telling ourselves the truth?
“The NLC leaders should not close their eyes because they are Nigerians. If this country fails, they have also failed. Every state should look at its own peculiarities and what it can pay.
“They should sit down with every state and look at their books. We would sit down with them, do our computation and see whether we will be able to pay the N18,000.
“For every kobo that comes into government, every citizen of that state is entitled to benefit from it. Do you want me to stop that? I can stop so many things to pay N18,000. Do you want me to cut the workforce? When will Nigerians start thinking Nigeria? I am worried when they talk about pedestrian issues.
On withdrawal of subsidy on petroleum products, Yuguda said it is long overdue.
“Deregulation should have been done so many years ago. It is a necessity; it is sine qua non for the development of Nigeria.
“Nigerians should allow Mr. President to take that decision. If N600billion or N700billion is going into few hands in the name of subsidy, is that proper?
“You can count those benefiting from subsidy; they are few who are buying yacht and mansions in different parts of the world at the expense of all Nigerians. Those benefiting from the subsidy are oil marketers and those in the petroleum industry. It is a cartel.
“I want to make it clear that it (deregulation) is a war that every Nigerian must fight. If you remove subsidy and pump N600billion or N700billion monthly into the state treasuries every month, all these criminalities and infrastructural decay will end.”
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