As the national strike by the resident doctors paralysed activities in government hospitals and facilities across the country, the Director-General, Michael Imoudu Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS), Comrade Issa Aremu, has called for an urgent reform of the industrial relations system in the country’s health sector for sustainable peace and service delivery.
The director-general of the number one labour institute in the country said all stakeholders in the health sector must play by the knowledge-based rules of collective bargaining, social dialogue, mediation and conciliation, to prevent incessant work stoppages in hospitals with attendant costs to lives.
Issa Aremu gave this position on Monday at the opening of a four-day Training Programme on Advocacy and Communication for Women’s Cooperatives & Economic Empowerment Collectives (WEECs), held in Abuja.
Describing indiscriminate indefinite strike as a “willful unacceptable Industrial suicide,” Comrade Aremu also said the delay in payment of salaries of medical personnel amount to wage theft.
In his opening remarks, the MINILS DG said: “I have also been saying it that delayed payment of salaries of medical personnel such as doctors and nurses and teachers amounted to wage theft. But so also indiscriminate indefinite strike under a Covid: 19 spiced up by a cholera outbreak amounts to willful unacceptable Industrial suicide.”
He, however, promised that MINILS was set to bridge the existing abysmal knowledge gap about labour market issues with respect to trade unionism, conflict resolution, strikes and strike management in critical sectors like education and health sectors.
While appealing to all parties involved to return to negotiating table, Comrade Aremu said: “A strike is not a war, certainly not a nuclear mutually war as we are witnessing in Nigeria. A strike is a temporary stoppage of work by a group of employees in order to express a grievance or enforce a demand. Each element in this definition is important.
“A strike is a temporary stoppage: the workers intend that at its conclusion they should return to the same jobs with the same terms. It’s time all parties suspended the existing unhelpful actions and returned to negotiations.”
He pointed out that MINILS was in total support of women inclusion in power and economy, adding that the institute supports wholeheartedly the advocacy of the Minister of State for Labour, Festus Keyamo, that the review of the 1999 Constitution captures women’s participation and gender equality in leadership and decision-making positions.
However, he insisted that the point cannot be overstated, saying, “only inclusive economic empowerment can ensure sustainable political inclusion of women. Women need both power and money to catch up in the race for development and poverty eradication. MINILS would support a new Political Economy for women inclusion in national development.”
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