President Bola Tinubu is scheduled to introduce wage recognition next week as a measure to ease the burden of petrol subsidy removal on workers.
Comrade Festus Osifo, who serves as the President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), shared this detail in an interview on Tuesday night on Channels Television’s “Politics Today” program.
With a two-week ultimatum, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) demanded that the federal government address its concerns promptly, warning of potential industrial action by workers throughout the country.
According to Osifo, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Simon Lalong, communicated to the TUC that he had met with President Tinubu and the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, regarding the matter.
Osifo reported that Lalong had informed the union that the wage issue had been reevaluated, and he also stated that President Tinubu would make a statement regarding it shortly.
The minister of labour told us that he had an audience with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the minister of finance and had reviewed the issue of wage award but that the president asked them to fine-tune the issues before he makes the announcement.’
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‘The minister told us all these issues would be streamlined but because the president has travelled, we should give him an extra two weeks. We said no; we don’t have an extra two weeks to give. After more discussions, he said the president would make a proper announcement next week.’
Osifo said the union had engaged the federal government on the palliatives released to states, adding that ‘we are going to monitor the distribution of palliatives in states to make sure the scheme is implemented appropriately.’
‘We want to see the template of the implementation which is why we engaged the federal government on this issue. We also raised issues around taxation and CNG (Compressed Natural Gas).’
Regarding the NLC’s two-week warning strike, Osifo pointed out that the union had not reneged on its decision since it had not originally endorsed the strike.
It is worth recalling that during an interview on Channels Television’s “Politics Today” program on Monday, the NLC president had explained that the TUC could not have withdrawn support for a strike it had not instigated.
‘The NLC will not take under our watch if we give a strike notice and then a union that didn’t give a strike notice says they are backing out of a strike that they didn’t call for,’ NLC president, Joe Ajaero, had said.
However, during an interview on Tuesday, TUC President Festus Osifo made it clear that the union had not indicated any intention to go ahead with the strike.
‘No, we never backed out from the strike we did not call,’ Osifo said, explaining that before announcing a strike, the protocol was for one union to reach out to the other for talks that would yield strategies between both parties.
He said: ‘In that plan, there are a lot of things that are looked at. You define your clear-cut strategy; you define the timing.’