Senior civil servants will not join the strike call by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), it was learnt yesterday.
The senior workers umbrella organisation, the Trade Union Congress (TUC), decided at its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting yesterday in Abuja that it would continue with dialogue with the government to ease the pain of petrol subsidy removal, a senior figure told the newsmen.
The NLC on Friday announced that workers will go on a two-day warning strike, tomorrow and Wednesday.
Its President Joe Ajaero said the decision was taken at its NEC meeting with possibility of a “total shutdown” after 14 days.
The TUC source, who is a NEC member said the union reasoned that the planned strike is “premature”.
“The TUC feels there is no need to embark on a strike because we are still discussing with the Federal Government on the issue of palliatives for workers,” he said.
In states such as Ogun and Niger, labour leaders ruled out the possibility of joining the strike while in Oyo and Sokoto, they insisted on a work boycott as directed by the NLC.
Some governors also moved to avert the strike by either arranging meetings with Labour leaders or restating their plans to ameliorate the pains caused by subsidy removal.
Akwa Ibom and Kano are such states where the governments will today meet with labour leaders.
The steps to prevent the warning strike by the Federal Government will be outlined today by Labour Minister Simon Lalong, it was learnt.
The NLC explained that the decision followed the “failure of the Federal Government to dialogue and engage stakeholders within the organised labour on efforts to cushion the effects of the removal of petrol subsidy on the poor masses.”
But speaking after the TUC meeting, the NWC member said joining the NLC in the strike would further put the interest of the masses at risk.
He accused the Ajaero-led NLC of slowing the pace of discussion between the Organised Labour and a Federal Government team led by Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila.
The source said,
“The TUC is not joining the NLC on that planned warning strike. The reason is because we are reaching out to the Federal Government. The government has already released palliatives to the states and we are also expecting the government to release the one for federal workers.”
“When we met with the Senate, the statement by the NLC that they don’t have confidence in the Chief of Staff to the President-led committee led to the suspension of that committee because the man (Femi Gbajabiamila) felt if the NLC doesn’t have confidence in him why should he be leading the committee when the outcome will not be palatable? That stalled the work of the committee .
“Now, there is a Minister of Labour and Employment (Simon Lalong), who is supposed to be the leader of the government team. There is an ongoing effort to interact with us to get results.
“We feel that it is not the right time to go on strike. When you go on strike we will be putting the masses at the receiving end because the government has a way of navigating out of such matters.
“Again, the issue of strike should not be one-sided. It should be a joint effort by the two labour centres to agree before issuing a strike notice. One centre cannot claim superiority over the other centre. It is not done anywhere.
“You cannot announce a strike and then decide to bring us in. It is supposed to be a decision taken by the two centres.
“The NLC is free to go on strike on its own. We are different unions.”
The NLC and the TUC jointly staged protests in Abuja and state capitals over the subsidy removal on August 3.
The NLC president could not be reached last night to confirm if it was on the same page with the TUC over the proposed warning protest. He neither picked telephone calls nor responded to a text message sent to him.
After that protest a meeting of the National Economic Council decided on the devolution of palliatives sharing to the states.
It announced that each state will get N5 billion in addition to procure 100,000 bags of rice, 40,000 bags of maize and fertilisers.
Finance Minister Wale Edun said at the weekend that N2 billion each had been released by the Federal Government to states. He said the money was being released in phases to curb likely inflation.
