Minimum wage: Labour Shuts Down State as Strike Enters Day 3

 

As the strike action embarked upon by members of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade union Congress (TUC) Taraba State chapter  enters day three, workers has declared a no pay no work action over government's refusal to implement  N30,000 national minimum wage agreement.

 

The NLC chairman Peter Jediel, and Sule Albasu the state TUC chairman, who made the declaration on behalf of workers said the government refusal to commence payment of the long-overdue workers national minimum wage has compelled workers with no option but to embark on an indefinite strike.

 

"We are coordinating all civil servants in the state to comply 100 per cent with the strike action, and you can see everywhere is shut down, our workers are sitting at home.

 

"We have commenced strike action since 12:00 midnight on Sunday, we are monitoring to ensure that the workers comply with our directives 100 per cent.

 

"The strike is Indefinite till our demand for implementation of the N30,000 minimum wage is met.

 

"The strike is a no pay no work strike, if the minimum wage is not implemented, we would not go to work," the labour leaders declared.

 

Reacting to the development, Mrs Suzzy Nathan, Taraba State head of service attributed the delay in the implementation of the 30,000 national minimum wage for workers in the state to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

She said the pandemic was behind the delay, expressing that government was not being insensitive to the workers' welfare as both local government and state workers were being paid their monthly salaries appropriately.

 

She appealed for more time to enable the governor to bounce from the economic crisis perpetrated by the pandemic.