18th June, 2015
Jethro Ibileke/Benin
The leadership of the Edo State Council of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), has threatened to embark on a strike if the accumulated salaries of local government workers in the state are not paid within two weeks.
The NLC described as a callous act, the non-payment of salaries of the local government workers running into several months salaries, asserting that the act was a deliberate act meant to undermine the sensibility of organized labour.
The NLC therefore, called on the state government and local government administration to as a matter of urgent public interest, pay the salaries “within two weeks without which congress may be forced to declare a trade dispute.”
The Congress however described “the logjam in the judiciary which has resulted in a six-month-old strike action as resolvable.”
It called on the state government to also resolve the issues within two weeks, noting that “members of JUSUN are our members whose well-being is our primary responsibility to protect.”
On casualisation, NLC said it was against the International Labour Organisation convention whose provision completely abhors casualisation in whatever form or name, just as it observed that the state public service was almost empty as no new staff have been recruited into the public service.
The NLC therefore called on the state government “to as a matter of urgency commence the process of recruitment into the state public service to save the state from an imminent systemic collapse.”