GOVT, LABOUR FAIL TO AGREE: Strike starts Thursday as planned by workers

Bleak days await Nigeria and its citizens beginning from Thursday September 27 as efforts by the Federal Government to stop the planned indefinite strike by Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), over demands for increase in minimum wage, has hit the rocks.

The Nigerian Government and NLC meeting on Wednesday to see that the strike was nipped in the bud ended in deadlock, with the workers union insisting it was going ahead with its industrial action.

During the meeting between the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, and the Tripartite Committee, they had considered the issue of the minimum wage that warranted the planned strike.

Ngige had promised the union that the Federal Government will take steps in addressing the issues, but his promise fell short of what NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, had wanted to hear.

He had therefore insisted that the position of the union remains as already planned regardless of the minister’s assurances.

NLC had earlier called on all its members to down tools beginning from midnight on Wednesday. They had frowned at the failures of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to reconvene the Tripartite Committee, which it set up to consider a new national minimum wage for workers.

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Labour leadership had also accused the government of ignoring their warning against, what it described as, government foot-dragging on the issue.

But Ngige, the Labour Minister had said that the Tripartite Committee was meant to reconvene on October 4, 2018.

By Ebere Ndukwu…

 

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