AS the one-week warning strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) moves into its third day, the federal government has reminded labour unions that the nation’s laws do not recognize such strikes.
ASUP’s warning strike is the second of such strikes in recent weeks following the one that had earlier embarked upon by their counterparts at the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
But speaking to State House correspondents in Abuja on Wednesday, Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chris Ngige, warned that since the laws do not recognize such strikes, government may be forced to invoke the “no work no pay” rule.
He said: “We also have warnings from doctors’ union and ASUU as well as NASU. We are discussing with them but we want to appeal to all of them that there is nothing like warning strike.
“There is nothing you cannot get by negotiation and you cannot get certain things by threats.”
“Warning strikes as far as government is concerned are threats. I have made it clear to them.”
“Government and labour laws make provision for social dialogue and collective bargaining agreements. It also makes provision for the review of the agreements.”
“Nigerian unions should imbibe the culture of social dialogue. They can go on strike after giving the mandatory notices but the same law says in Section 43 that if you withdraw your services, your union is supposed to pay you. Your employer will not pay. That is how the issue of no work, no pay came up.”
“It is in the country’s labour. For the period you withdraw your services, it will not count for you in your pensionable times. It is taken as broken service. The unions have the responsibility to lecture their members on this.
“If your employer has not complied with an agreement, you take him back to negotiation table or he can ask you for a re-negotiation.
“Everything is about money and funding. Most of those agreements are not backed by appropriation. Government at times because of threats said pressures from the unions succumb to certain conditions that are not implementable.
“We have a lot of them and that is why the university unions will now have to go back for renegotiation for the 2009 agreement they had with the Federal Government.
“We want them to give government a chance. Government has a human face; we are human.”
Ngige assured that the government was handling the issue of industrial relations the best way it could “with an economy that is in technical recession like ours.”
He said some of the labour unions such as the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) were cooperating with government while a technical committee was working on the issue of the minimum wage.
He added: “We are almost finishing our work and we are handing over next week.
“Everybody knows that prices have gone up and in some states, workers are not getting salaries. They are unable to pay the minimum wage. These are the things we have taken into account in our discussion.”
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