NIGERIA’S Joint Health Sector Unions, JOHESU, and the Assembly of Healthcare Professionals (AHP) will take part in a national health strike from midnight on Friday 14th November they said in a joint statement on Monday.
The strike will disrupt healthcare delivery and academic operations across Nigeria, as JOHESU represents several major unions – the Medical and Health Workers’ Union of Nigeria, MHWUN, Nigerian Union of Allied Health Professionals, NUAHP, Senior Staff Association of Universities, Teaching Hospitals, Research Institutes and Associated Institutions, SSAUTHRIAI, and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, NASU.
The unions have been locked in long-running negotiations with the Federal Government over issues of salary disparity, welfare, and working conditions when compared to doctors under the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure, CONMESS and have said that they are not close to an agreement. Their primary grievance centres on the long-delayed adjustment of the Consolidated Health Salary Structure, CONHESS, pending for over ten years.
In a letter addressed to the Minister of Labour and Employment, JOHESU accused the government of failing to honour the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, signed with the unions on 29th October, 2024, which sought to expedite the implementation of the long-overdue salary adjustments.
The letter, co-signed by JOHESU Chairman, Kabiru Minjibir, and National Secretary, Martin Egbanubi, said that despite repeated assurances, including direct intervention by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2023, the Federal Government had failed to take concrete action.
JOHESU said the government continues to delay any action on salaries and have been in negotiations with the union since August 2023, despite several assurances from the Federal Executive Council, FEC of the government.
The statement said: ‘In 2025 alone, at conciliation meetings, the government has promised and failed to deliver on timelines agreed on four different occasions.’
The unions also condemned what they described as discriminatory treatment at a meeting held on 29th October, 2025, at the Federal Ministry of Finance, which they attended alongside the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, NANNM, and the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors, NARD.
JOHESU and the AHP said: ‘The way the government has acted leaves us with no choice but to now take our destiny in our hands we hereby issue an ultimatum. All members shall withdraw their services across health facilities nationwide with effect from midnight of Friday, 14th November, 2025.
Meanwhile, Tunisian bank workers in the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) held a two-day strike on Monday and Tuesday to demand pay rises, halting all financial transactions as the country struggles with an economic crisis.
The UGTT union called the strike after talks over pay and working conditions broke down with the banking council, which represents all public and private banks.
The union says rising living costs have eroded employees’ purchasing power and is demanding ‘urgent adjustments’ to salaries. The government was not immediately available for comment.
UGTT Secretary General Noureddine Taboubi told a rally of hundreds of bank workers on Monday that ‘union rights, as well as public and individual freedoms, were under attack’.
‘Trade unionists are fighting not only for their rights but also for their dignity,’ he added.
Tunisia is grappling with a severe economic crisis, with a shortage of foreign funding and investment, weak economic growth, public debt exceeding 80 per cent of GDP, shortages of some essential goods and poor public services.
A bank worker, Abdel Aziz, said: ‘Bank employees are suffering like all Tunisians with rising cost of living.’
The UGTT said it will take further action if the Tunisian government does not meet its demands.
- The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has accused employers of engaging in ‘outright theft’ by deducting statutory and third-party payments from workers’ salaries but failing to remit them to the relevant authorities.
The deductions – which include pension contributions, medical aid, National Social Security Authority (NSSA) payments, and trade union dues – are legally mandated, yet many employers allegedly withhold the funds, leaving employees unable to access benefits when needed despite the deductions appearing on their payslips.
ZCTU secretary-general Tirivanhu Marimo said the practice, which has become widespread in both the public and private sectors, constitutes a serious violation of labour and criminal laws.
Marimo stated: ‘Let it be made clear: this conduct is outright theft from workers. It is criminal, unethical, and a gross abuse of trust. ‘These are not optional deductions; they are legal obligations meant to secure the welfare and future of employees.
‘When employers withhold such remittances, they are robbing workers of their hard-earned benefits and placing their social and financial security at risk.’
He said the union was demanding that the government and relevant authorities act decisively against errant employers.
‘We condemn this behaviour in the strongest possible terms and demand that authorities take decisive action.
‘Offending employers must face prosecution, heavy penalties, and, in serious cases, suspension of their operating licences.
‘Workers must not be made to carry the burden of corporate irresponsibility.’
Marimo noted that a lack of transparency has worsened the problem, as many affected employees are denied payslips or any documentation showing deductions.
- At least 40 people in Sudan have been killed in a drone strike that targeted a funeral that was taking place outside the army-held city of el-Obeid in North Kordofan state, officials and activists say.
They blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for Monday’s attack on al-Luweib village as mourners had gathered in a tent. The RSF has not yet commented.
Many reportedly died before getting to hospital in el-Obeid, a strategic city that connects the capital, Khartoum, to the western region of Darfur.
Fighting has intensified in this oil-rich Kordofan area and around 20,000 people fled to el-Obeid last week after the RSF captured Bara town, 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of the city.
The town fell at the same time as the city of el-Fasher, which had been the army’s last stronghold in Darfur.
There have since been reports of mass killings, sexual violence, abductions and widespread looting in el-Fasher by RSF fighters.
The UN said summary executions of civilians by RSF fighters had also been reported in Bara.
Such atrocities could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has warned.
The ICC’s statement came as a global group of food security experts confirmed on Monday that el-Fasher residents were suffering from famine following the RSF’s 18-month siege of the city.
The UN-accredited Integrated Food Security Phase network (IPC) also said the city of Kadugli in South Kordofan state was in the most catastrophic stage of hunger.
