Railway workers issue strike warning, condemn govt’s handling of lingering ASUU impasse

The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), on Wednesday, vowed to go on an extended strike in response to lengthy negotiations for better welfare that have so far produced no results.

The union complained that no “major achievement” had been noted eight months after its three-day nationwide warning strike.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike is still in effect, and NUR criticized the government’s handling of the situation, calling the current administration’s “no work, no pay” stance hypocritical.

Innocent Luka Ajiji and Segun Esan, the president and secretary of NUR, in a joint statement issued on Wednesday, also urged the government to save the hopelessness of millions of Nigerian youngsters in a statement.

It urged the Federal Government to act quickly to break the deadlock in the best interests of the country as a whole.

Additionally, the railway workers demanded that the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) payment platform be used by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

The statement read, “Nigerian Railway workers under the aegis of the Nigeria Union of Railway workers strongly condemn the vapid and uninspiring attitude of the Federal Government to end the lingering face-off between it and the Unions of Universities, Polytechnics, Colleges of Education, and Research Institutions, especially on the government’s no-work-no pay policy on the striking workers of the universities and other tertiary institutions.

“We, therefore, appeal to the federal government to meet the legitimate charter of demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) with no further delay and save the nation’s education sector from total collapse. The federal government should be responsible enough to end the ongoing ASUU strike and rescue millions of Nigerian schooling youths who are majorly the children of the working class and poor masses from ruins and tempestuous engagements. The federal government should always remember that an idle hand is the devil’s workshop.

Read also: Railway workers suspend strike action

“Most importantly, the Federal Government should adopt the preferred salary payment platform in place of IPPIS as proposed by the striking university lecturers and also do all that is necessary for the infrastructural development of the nation’s ivory towers.

“In the same vein, the condemnable insensitivity of the management and the Board of Nigerian Railway Corporation to the welfare and wellbeing of the teeming railway workers may compel the industry to witness a total and indefinite strike action any moment from now.

“It is unfortunate and most disheartening that, almost 8 months after the Nigerian Railway workers’ 3-day nationwide warning strike of November 2021 was suspended and clear agreement reached between the Union and the management with January 2022 deadline for the management to provide answers to the charter of demands of the workers, no significant achievement has been made by the management so far to assuage the aggrieved workers till now.”

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