Organised Labour and its civil society allies have concluded plans to embark on a peaceful protest in Port Harcourt, Rivers on Sept. 8, over infractions on workers and trade union rights.
Mr Ayuba Wabba, the President, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Mr Quadri Olaleye disclosed this during a news conference on Thursday in Abuja.
The news conference titled: “Nigerian workers reject and protest the use of strong-arm tactics and deployment of violence against workers by the Rivers State Government led by Gov. Nyesom Wike’’.
Wabba said that the protest was to alert Nigerians on the alleged birth of new progeny of authoritarianism, industrial tyranny and state sponsored violence and terrorism against workers and citizens by the Rivers government.
“Nigerian workers under the aegis of NLC and TUC and our civil society allies in the discharge of our constitutional rights will embark on a peaceful protest in Port Harcourt, Rivers on Sept. 8.
“The protest is to draw the attention of the world to the following infractions on workers and trade union rights in Rivers, which includes the act of lawlessness by sealing off the NLC Rivers State Council.”
The NLC president said others were the issue of witch-hunting, persecution and prosecution of trade union leaders on trumped up charges, non-payment of gratuity and pensions to pensioners since 2015, non-payment of promotion arrears since 2015.
He however, noted that the Rivers state government had failed to clear the arears of pension and gratuity indebtedness in the state.
“This wicked act has become the living nightmare of senior citizens who are being punished for serving the state. These pensioners are dying in droves as a result of neglect.
“The Rivers State government owes some workers in the state up to seven months salaries. The February and March 2016 salaries of teachers in the state were not paid due to the biometric test ordered by the state government, ”Wabba said.
Wabba said that the health workers in Rivers were denied their October 2017 salary due to their participation in the National Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) strike.
Wabba said that the state government had refused to negotiate with workers’ organisations on salary adjustments consequent on the new national minimum wage.
He said that since the enactment of the new national minimum wage of N30,000, there had been no collective bargaining agreement and enabling circular for the implementation of the new national minimum wage in Rivers.
Wabba said that the Rivers government had also refused to conclude negotiations on consequential salary adjustments with workers’ in the state and also excluded all the tertiary institutions from benefitting from any consequential salary adjustment.
He said that the Rivers government deployed hired thugs to attack workers both individually and as a group.
“The attack of trade union leaders and violent disruption of the Rivers State Executive Council meeting on Aug. 27, was only an icing on the cake of Gov. Nyesom Wike of River State malfeasance,” he said.
He said the state government had refused to remit statutory check off dues to unions and the labour centres.
“This means that the Rivers State government is projecting an overt agenda of suffocating trade unions in the State to death in clear violation of Section 17 of Nigeria’s Trade Union Act.
“Fellow Nigerians, if after next week’s protest, the state government continues to hold labour in contempt and fails to redress our concerns, we will be left with no other option than to ground every socio-economic activity in the state until the Rivers State Governor does the needful.
“We will continue to demand that the rights of our workers in the workplace, their safety and the sanctity of their lives must be respected always both by government and private sector employers. We will never shirk from this sacred mandate,” he said.
JAN /
Edited By: Benson Iziama /Grace Yussuf (NAN)
