IDPs are better than us ―Kogi workers

AS the strike action embarked upon by the organised labour in Kogi state continued on Wednesday, the workers said the agony they were facing then was more than that of the internally displaced persons (IDP).

The organised labour said the workers in the state needed the services of the humanitarian agencies to provide relief materials for them.

The workers in a statement signed by Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Olakunle Faniyi and Kolawole James and Joint Public Services negotiating council counterpart, Comrade Isah Abubakar, said the dying workers of the state needed intervention.

They noted that a “situation where workers could not afford even one meal a day and pay the school fees of their children is already a humanitarian issue.

” As it stands today in Kogi state, over 30 percent of the workforce are being owed 21 months salaries, 21 percent have unpaid salaries between 11 and 18 months, while about 45 percent took their salaries up till June this year.

“These are categories of workers that the Kogi state government is forcing to embrace the clock in, clock out policy of the government”.

The workers said instead of apologising to the workers and their families over the untold hardship they had been subjected to, the state government was rolling “out falsehood on how workers have been paid their salaries up until July “.

The organised labour however charged the government to treat the workers with dignity, saying “not even in the era of slavery that slaves are forced to work on empty stomachs “.