THE organised Labour has expressed dissatisfaction with the slow pace of implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding it signed with the Federal Government to avert its planned nationwide strike.
The state chapters of the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress said failure to implement the agreement before the October 30 deadline might leave them with no choice but to down tools, noting that they had commenced mobilisation of their members across the country.
Asked on Tuesday whether Labour was satisfied with the implementation of the MoU, the Head of Information and Public Affairs of the NLC, Benson Upah, said, “No, we are not. The government could do better and faster. We issued a statement a few days ago in which we expressed our displeasure with the Minister of Labour and Employment.”
The national leadership of the NLC and TUC had on October 1 reached an agreement with the Federal Government to pay N35,000 to all federal workers beginning from September pending when a new national minimum wage would be signed into law.
The resolution provided that the wage award would be paid to the federal workers for six months while states were encouraged to extend the same benefit to their workers.
The unions had threatened to declare a nationwide strike on October 3 but the move was suspended on the condition that the wage award, cash transfer, and some other resolutions must be implemented within 30 days effective from the day the MoU was signed.
This newspaper reports that out of the 15 demands contained in the MoU, only a handful had been implemented by the government.
The Federal Government had ordered the payment of the N35,000 wage award and provision was being made for 55,000 Compressed Natural Gas conversion kits to kick-start the autogas conversion programme, while work had reportedly commenced on the construction of the state-of-the-art CNG stations nationwide, among others.
The Kano State chapter of the NLC said it would wait to see the implementation of the wage award by the Federal Government before knowing the right steps to take.
The state Chairman, Kabiru Inuwa, stated, “We shall wait to see if the Federal Government implements the wage award to its workers because we don’t want to say the action we will take until after we’re sure of what the Federal Government does.”
He said the union had written to the state government demanding the immediate implementation of the wage award to workers in the state, but the government had yet to respond.
“You know we have written to the state government requesting for the payment of the wage award to our members but the government is yet to respond. We are still waiting for the government to invite us or respond to our letter. But we will continue to wait until we see what the Federal Government does. So, we shall take the next line of action if the state government fails to implement the wage award to our members.’’
