STRIKE: Niger workers down tools on Monday to press home demands

… As NLC dissociates self from Kano government pay cut for workers

Abiodun OBA

All category of workers in Niger state are to down tools beginning from today Monday March 7, 2022.

It was learnt that a last minute meeting summoned by the Niger State Government and officials of the organised labour scheduled for the Government House to find a way out did not hold on Friday because officials of labour turned their backs on the parley.

Phone calls to the cell phones of the labour leaders by government officials did not go through. However, a statement by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in the state directed the workers to begin a seven-day warning strike from Monday to press home their demands.

“All affiliate unions of the NLC operating at the LGA level in Niger State are directed to proceed on seven days warning strike effective 12 midnight of Thursday the 3rd of March 2022,” a statement signed by the state NLC Chairman, Yakubu Garba, said

The statement also directed “all affiliate unions of the NLC and TUC in Niger State to proceed on seven days warning strike effective 12 midnight on Sunday, the 6th of March, 2022”.

The Congress, in the statement, advised civil servants and citizens to remain vigilant at all times and cooperate with the security formations near them especially as it concerns provision of local intelligence.

Some of the demands of the workers are the immediate stoppage of the payment of local government workers in percentages, as well as making council workers salary payment a first line charge.

Meanwhile, Kano State chapter of the NLC, has dissociated itself from plans by the state government to cut the take-home pay of workers for the month of February by returning to the old salary scale.

NLC Chairman in Kano state, Kabiru Ado Minjibir, at a press conference said the Congress has disassociated itself from the alleged “government’s sabotage plan.”

He said the government told labour it could not pay N30,000 minimum wage to workers due to a shortfall in the FAAC allocation accrued to the state.

Minjibir said the union met with the government and made three recommendations on how to go about the issue, adding that the government accepted two of them but turned down the one that has to do with the commitment of paying workers the shortfall in their salaries once the FAAC allocation of the state improves.

“In line with these, we want to inform all workers in the state and the general public that the NLC and all leaders of other unions in the state disassociate itself from this decision,” he said.

Reacting to the development, the state’s commissioner for information, Muhammad Garba, complained that the government was facing a shortfall in revenue generation which he said bedevils most states.

“We have been paying an extra N600 making N30,600 up to January. It was in February we saw that we have a serious problem with revenue generation and we sat with NLC and explained our problem to them and our decision to revert to what we can pay – the old salary scale,” he said.