BY Akinwale Yekeen
The leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) has suspended the planned indefinite nationwide strike.
The labour bodies announced the suspension of the planned strike which was scheduled to take off on October 3, after a meeting with the representatives of the federal government at the State House, on Monday.
The labour leaders reached the agreement to shelve the planned action in a memorandum of understanding (MoU) issued and signed by Joe Ajaero, NLC president, Festus Osifo, NUC president and representatives of the federal government, Simon Lalong, minister of labour and employment, at the end of the meeting.
The federal government on Sunday called an emergency meeting to engage the unions as a measure to avert the nationwide strike, which is meant to be a protest against the removal of the petrol subsidy and economic hardship in the country.
At the end of the four-hour meeting on Sunday, President Bola Tinubu approved N35,000 as the provisional wage increment for all categories of federal workers.
According to the MoU produced on Monday after the meeting, it was agreed that the payment of N35,000 should commence from September “pending when a new national minimum wage is expected to have been signed into law”.
The parties also agreed that a minimum wage committee would be inaugurated within one month from the date of the agreement.
It was also agreed that the government would allocate N100 billion for the procurement of high-capacity compressed natural gas (CNG) buses for mass transit in Nigeria.
“Provisions are also being made for an initial 55,000 CNG conversion kits to kick start an auto gas conversion programme, whilst work is ongoing on state-of-the-art CNG stations nationwide. The rollout aims to commence by November with pilots across 10 campuses nationwide,” the MoU reads.
On the issue of outstanding salaries and wages of tertiary Education workers in federal-owned educational institutions, they agreed that the matter should be referred to the ministry of labour and employment for further engagement.
They also agreed that a joint visitation would be made to the refineries to ascertain their rehabilitation status while all parties committed to henceforth abide by the dictates of social dialogue in all future engagements.
” This Memorandum shall be filed with the relevant Court of competent jurisdiction within one (1) week as consent judgment by the Federal,” the document concluded.
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