FOLLOWING the failure of some state governments to implement the new N18,000 minimum wage, workers in Ekiti, Imo and Anambra states yesterday embarked on indefinite strike to press home their demands.
This brings to seven, the number of states that have been crippled by the strike. Before yesterday, Adamawa, Enugu, Kano and Ebonyi states had been shackled by minimum wage-related industrial action.
Workers decried government’s evasive posture in Ekiti State.
At a time the state government was making arrangements to pay the wage beginning from September and had sent a supplementary budget to the House of Assembly, workers in Ekiti elected to go on strike from today because the government failed to meet their terms and conditions over the matter.
Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, in the state, Comrade Ayodeji Aluko, stated that their action became inevitable since the state government had failed to meet workers’ expectation on the payment of the new salary.
The NLC boss said the action would commence 12 midnight today and it would be binding on all public officers in the state civil service .
Aluko said that the N15, 000 minimum wage being proposed for workers was unacceptable, saying anything short of what is recognized by law would be rejected by labour.
The NLC boss expressed surprise over what he described as the reluctance and evasive posture put up by the state government over the payment despite the resolve of labour to be civil and rational in their approach.
The state governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, had earlier assured workers in the state of his readiness to pay the new minimum wage by end of this month.
0 comments:
Post a Comment