The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) may declare nationwide indefinite strike on Monday.
The federal government and labour are yet to reach an agreement over relief measures following the removal of fuel subsidy.
NLC President, Joe Ajaero, gave the indication while speaking on ARISE News Channel yesterday.
According to him, “For the total, indefinite strike, Nigerians should expect total impact.
“First, the basis for asking for palliatives and even wage award should have been there if the government were able to do the first things first.
“But for it to take steps to remove subsidy, every normal human being should have known that there will be effects and we should have equally discussed the effects.
“But within some minutes, subsidy was removed and we say, no, return it back to status quo so that we can discuss. They said, no, ask for palliatives, ask for wage increase. And here, the same thing they had asked us to ask were things we asked for but they can’t provide them and they have vacated the negotiating table.
“We don’t know what to do again. We gave a notice for protest, we did protest and they promised to get back to us. After that time, nothing happened. We gave notice for warning strike, and the warning strike came and nothing happened.
“We gave another 21 days’ notice, it expired on Friday. I don’t know how much time the Minister of labour is asking for. We honoured a meeting summoned by the Minister Labour and Employment last week,” Ajaero said.
NLC president also reacted to the concerns of Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) and Manufacturers Association (MAN) over the negative effect of the strike on businesses and national economy
“NECA is our social partner but, unfortunately, the current leadership talks to us through a third party. NECA has not written us, they have asked us to explain issues, so NECA can’t be playing to the gallery.
“NECA can’t at this point continue to play with all the workers in the private sector.”
Ajaero said NECA should not be saying that the strike would affect the economy when the economy had already been destroyed.
“Workers are not going to work, even all the state governments are now reducing the number of days workers are coming to work. So if a state government can say workers should not come to work for two days and labour goes on strike for two days, what is the difference? Is it not the same man-hours that are being lost?”
