Labour Suspends Planned Strike For 30 Days
Organised Labour last night, encased decision upturning its earlier advertised indefinite strike action to commence today.
NLC suspend its strike action for 30 days to enable the government to fulfil the terms of the agreement reached after hours of meeting last night.
Indications had earlier emerged that the planned nationwide strike would be suspended when officials of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) returned to the Presidential Villa, Abuja, yesterday evening to conclude negotiations with the Federal Government, especially after a shift in government position on Sunday night, resulting in the N35,000 wage top-up across all ranks for federal workers.
Owing to trust deficit between Labour and government, both parties had to lock themselves last night in another marathon meeting to fine-tune details of the agreements reached and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) binding on all parties.
The MoU, a copy of which was sighted by The Guardian last night, and which was signed by NLC President, Joe Ajaero and General Secretary, Emmanuel Ugboaja; TUC President, Festus Osifo and Secretary-General, Nuhu Toro; and Federal Government delegation: Minister of Labour and Employment, Simon Bako Lalong, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Dr. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, and Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, had 15-point agreements.
Top on the agreements reached were: Federal Government grants a wage award of N35,000 to all Federal Government workers beginning from September, pending when a new national minimum wage is expected to have been signed into law; a minimum wage committee to be inaugurated within one month from the date of the agreement; suspension of Value Added Tax (VAT) collection on diesel for six months beginning from October 2023; a vote by Federal Government of N100 billion for the provision of high capacity CNG buses for mass transit in Nigeria; and government plan to implement various tax incentive measures for private sector and the general public.
