Ekiti Workers Embark On Indefinite Strike Over Unpaid Salaries

Trouble started on Thursday, 26th of May, when the workers, under the aegis of the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, Trade Union Congress, TUC and Joint
Negotiating Council, JNC, declared an indefinite industrial action, after the expiration of the 24 and 48 hour ultimatums after which windows of negotiations were closed.

All government offices were put under lock and key, as governance was rendered prostrate. Only few of the political appointees were seen doing skeletal work in their offices.

The unions had on Tuesday, the 17th of May, first issued a 24 hour ultimatum to Governor Fayose to pay a sum of N512 million being money deducted from December, 2015 salary or face industrial action.

The strike was later shelved due to the nationwide strike declared to protest hikes in fuel price by the federal government.

After the suspension of the nationwide strike on Sunday night, the unions after their joint meeting of Tuesday, May 24 issued another 48 hours to the governor on the need to address some of their sundry demands to avert the crisis, which lapsed on midnight Wednesday.

A statement signed by chairmen of TUC, Coms Odunayo Adesoye, NLC, Ade Adesanmi and JNI Secretary , Oladele Blessing , said the strike became the last resort after they haddisplayeduncommon
understanding over the
state’s financial status. Workers’ demand.
The workers’ demands are: the release of the staff audit and verification conducted in April , 2015, disclosure of the monthly internally generated revenue, payment of arrears of salaries pension and gratuities, payment of September 2014 salary to primary school teachers, payment of 2014 and 2015 leave bonuses.

Others include: implementation of
promotion for 2013, 2014, 2015,
approval of inter-cadre transfer,
remission of10% IGR to local
government and stoppage of Joint
Allocation Committee’s account,
resuscitation of LG staff pension funds and release of running grants to secondary schools and LGs.

The labour leaders said: “Your
Excellency Sir, we have remained calm since these days hoping that respite will soon come our way, but hope is becoming a mirage. Besides, there is a limit toendurance”, they said.

Governor Fayose’s reaction
But reacting to the strike in a televised broadcast on Thursday,

Fayose said the state was facing a serious financial crises that may not enable it meet up with certain responsibilities immediately. He said workers monthly wage bill is currently over N2 billion
whereas federal allocation keep
reducing from almost N3 billion to as low as N751 million in April, adding that the workers are privy to the state’s allocation and are active participants in the sharing committee.

“Even before going on their strike, I got to know that many of them no longer go to office while many others were going late, but why I refused to come hard on
those involved was that I had no moral justification to do so since I know we were owing them.

“I cannot stop workers from going on strike, we shall be waiting till when they come back, but they must realise that a strike is not the best option. “Even in Government House, we don’t have money to power generators, whereas, I cannot sell myself or members of my family to raise funds,things are that difficult,” Fayose said. The Governor, therefore threatened to invoke the no- work-no-pay rule, probably to coerce  the striking workers to return to their duty posts.