The federal government and organised labour signed a Memorandum of Understanding to avoid a planned statewide strike, but the agreement has only recently begun to be put into effect.
The state chapters of the Nigerian Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress warned that if the deal was not implemented by the deadline of October 30, they could be forced to shut down, adding that they had already started mobilising their members nationwide.
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.
However, 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.
