Bauchi State Council of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has issued a seven days ultimatum to the state Government within which to address all its demands or face a total industrial action.
The NLC Chairman, Comrade Danjuma Saleh, who addressed Journalists at the NUT Secretariat on Monday declared that “The organised labour will not guarantee the continuous conducive industrial atmosphere in the state if the issues continue to linger.”
He said that the non-remittance of constitutional deductions of unions as at when due is an attempt to weaken the activities of the organised labour and could no longer be accepted adding also that the Withholding of Third-party funds such as the National Housing Fund Contributions (NHF DEDUCTION) and voluntary contribution schemes by unions should under normal be remitted all along with salaries since they are deducted from workers salaries with their consent.
The NLC berated the state government for what it described as indiscriminate payment of workers monthly salaries, omission/removal of a large number of workers from the payroll, cutting huge portion of some categories of Staff allowances for the month of June and July 2020 especially those in the health sector.
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The labour union further alleged that “To worsen matters, we discovered that over 10,000 workers could not access their July salaries. The organised labour views this as an attempt to retrench workers systematically in the state.”
Furthermore, the NLC stated that “it is mind-boggling that our members from some very important MDAs such as Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Bauchi Radio Corporation (BRC), Specialist Hospital, Hospital Management Board, Ministry of Environment, BASPHCDA, House of Assembly etc were denied June and July salaries.
But in a swift reaction, the State Government admitted that as of Monday, August 10th, only 350 civil servants were yet to receive their salaries due to what it described as network failure from the interbank connection assuring however that efforts are on to solve the problem.
Speaking through the Commissioner of Finance, Umar Sanda Adamu, the state government also denied non-remittance of deductions as union dues saying that every deduction has been duly remitted.
The Commissioner further said that negotiation is ongoing with the organised labour on how to sort out all differences in the state civil service in order to ensure that the service was streamlined in conformation with the best world practice.
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