HEALTH workers at the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Dala, Kano State, Nigeria, last Wednesday began an indefinite strike over non-payment of three months’ salary.
The workers had earlier gone on a five-day warning strike which expired the previous week. An official of the health workers union who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria under anonymity said the action was to pressurise the Federal Government to pay them.
The official said: ‘We call on the Federal Government to pay our three months salary as this has brought untold hardship to our members.’ The hospital’s spokesman, Malam Rabi’u Mohammed, confirmed the development. Mohammed said the workers had commenced an indefinite strike to protest against the non-payment of their three months salaries.
• The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), and National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, (NUTGTWN) on Sunday, said that 2016 was the toughest and most difficult for Nigerians, especially workers, in the last 30 years.
In a New Year message to workers and other Nigerians, the trio demanded good leadership from the Federal Government instead of the blame game, insisting that the new National Minimum Wage, NMW, was a must to avoid nationwide industrial unrest and for workers to cope with the high cost of living.
NLC, in a message by its President, Ayuba Wabba, lamented that 2016 was perhaps the toughest and most difficult for workers, pensioners and the mass of the poor and working people of the country in almost three decades. ‘The astronomical increase in the pump price of petroleum products, the massive and continuing devaluation of the Naira, the rise in inflation and the 43 per cent increase in electricity tariff in February 2016, all combined to make life difficult for the wage earners and worse for the teeming millions of our people without any means of livelihood,’ Wabba stated.
Contending that in the last 12 months the living standard of majority of Nigerians had taken a terrible beating, Wabba lamented that the projections and forecasts for the economy in the New Year were equally not very optimistic.
The NLC president, who recalled congress’ struggles in 2016, such as the strike against fuel price increase, unpaid salaries and pensions/retrenchments in the public sector, corruption, crisis of unemployment, harped on the urgent need for a new minimum wage.
The Nigerian TUC in its message by its President and Secretary, Bobboi Kaigama and Musa Lawal, also noted that government must put all measures in place to achieve a new minimum wage in the interest of industrial peace. The TUC argued that the issue of no money for a new minimum wage was not tenable, saying ‘In light of the prevailing realities and how it has affected workers take home, we call for an upward review of the wages for workers.
‘The devaluation of the naira and other unfriendly economic measures are taking a toll on the workers and Nigerians generally. The usual excuse of no money because of the activities of the Niger Delta militants and fall in the price of oil does not subsist here.
‘Our position is, any governor who cannot pay salaries as at when due should not earn his, let alone pay his aides.
‘We are going to work tirelessly in conjunction with our state councils to actualise that.
‘Our suggestion is: see to the demands of the Niger Delta militants, pass the petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, into law, diversify the economy, reduce cost of running government, jail looters of our treasury and there will be money to do much more than Nigerians are yearning for. We hope governments at all levels listen to the voice of reason.’
Similarly, NUTGTWN in a message by John Adaji and Issa Aremu, President and General Secretary of union, among others, called for the urgent review of the national minimum wage. According to the union: ‘The Federal Government should immediately constitute the Tripartite Committee for the review of the national minimum wage.
‘The point cannot be overstated. The only way to reflate the economy is to increase the wages of workers. Our experience shows that through dialogue and collective bargaining, a new national minimum wage in Nigeria is possible.’
The President of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) Niger State Chapter, Alhaji Saidu Kala, has urged the state government to pay local government workers their outstanding salaries. The Ministry of Local Government in the state had embarked on the screening of personnel to identify the genuine workers and make out the ghost workers.
Kala made the call for the payment of the workers in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Friday in Minna. He said the screening committee had done 80 per cent of the screening, with workers of a few local government councils yet to be screened.Kala said: ‘I advise the ministry not to tarry in releasing the salary of those that have been screened.
‘We have the belief that the funds are available and our agreement is that nobody should be delayed from getting salary as long as such persons have been screened and cleared.’
Kala said that the exercise was for October, November and December and that the motive of the verification exercise is ‘no screening no salary’. The NULGE president explained that some have been screened but because of one or two issues they have, they might not be paid until they were cleared.
He said: ‘The committee is enjoying so much cooperation from the workers because they know it involves a lot of bureaucracy to carry out the verification. They know that a lot of atrocities have been committed in the past and that such atrocities need to be rectified.’ The screening was embarked upon by a 20-man committee in October as directed by Governor Abubarkar Bello.
• The National Bureau of Statistics said the country’s unemployment rate had risen from 13.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2016 to 13.9 per cent as at the end of the third quarter. The bureau stated this in the unemployment report which was released last Friday by the Statistician General of the Federation in Abuja.
In the report, the bureau said the number of economically active people increased from 106.69 million in the second quarter to 108.03 million in the third quarter. It added that during the period, a total number of 554,311 fresh people out of those that joined the labour force were unemployed in the third quarter.
This, according to the report, represents a 1.26 per cent increase over the previous quarter and a 3.57 per cent increase when compared to the corresponding third quarter of 2015. The report states: ‘The number of underemployed in the labour force increased by 501,074 or 3.25 per cent resulting in an increase in the underemployment rate from 19.3 per cent in Q2 2016 to 19.7 per cent (15.9 million persons) in Q3 2016.
‘This is a marginal increase of 0.4 percentage points between quarters 2 and 3 of 2016, and shows a steady rise in the rate since Q3 of 2015. During the reference period, the number of unemployed in the labour force, increased by 554,311 persons, resulting in an increase in the national unemployment rate to 13.9 per cent in Q3 2016 from 13.3 per cent in Q2.’
The report stated that unemployment and underemployment was highest for persons in the labour force between the ages of 15-24, and 25- 34, which represents the youth population. It noted that, as was the case in previous quarters, unemployment and underemployment was higher for women than men in the third quarter of 2016.
For instance, it said while 15.9 per cent of women in the labour force were unemployed in the third quarter of 2016, a further 22.9 per cent of women in the labour force were underemployed during the period. On the other hand, the report said 12 per cent of males were unemployed in the third quarter of 2016, while a further 16.7 per cent of males in the labour force were underemployed during the same period.
