Unpaid national minimum wage: Protesting National Assembly staff shun dialogue with CNA, others

Thousands of workers under the aegis of the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN) on Monday shunned entreaties from the Clerk for the National Assembly (CNA), Architect Amos Ojo for dialogue as the indefinite strike began over the non-payment of outstanding National Minimum Wage and implementation of Revised Conditions of Service.

The workers who blocked the major entrances leading to the National Assembly complex, Abuja, displayed various placards to express their grievances.

They include: “Show us National Assembly budget details now’; ‘Pay us our demands: CONLESS, Rent subsidy, Leave Grant, Hazard Allowance, Minimum Wage, etc’; ‘A National Assembly that makes and breaks laws’; ‘Stoppage of existing allowances affect productivity; ‘We can’t legislate for minimum wage and be the last to implement same, the world hears us’; ‘No training of staff for 20 years; ‘Demands: Full implementation of Revised Conditions of Service, training and retraining of staff, the balance of Minimum Wage.”

Speaking, PASAN Chairman, Comrade Sunday Sabiyi who accused some staff of sabotaging the efforts of the Association, underscored the need to fish out “the Judas” within the staff.

Worried by the outrage among the workers, he vehemently pleaded with the protesting workers to give an audience to the management representative to address them.

While addressing the protesting staff, Secretary, Human Resources, Mr Suraju Oladoyin who begged the workers to sheath their swords by attending a meeting with the management.

While addressing Parliamentary Correspondents during the protest, PASAN Zonal Vice Chairman (FCT Branch), Comrade Ladi Josiah described the solidarity displayed by the workers as the dance of sorrow amidst abundance.

“This is not a celebration dance, this is a dance of sorrow. As Africans, when we are in pain, we cry and dance and we are here in sorrow and in pain because of the management of the National Assembly starting from the Senate President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives down to the Clerk has refused to implement the agreement that we reached since 2018.

“The agreement was based on the revised Conditions of Service for staff of the National Assembly, where some allowances were increased and some were added.

“But till today, they’re not been implementing the said agreement. They paid some of the allowances last year but by January this year, they stopped all payments, claiming that the Salaries and Wages Commission has not approved those allowances.

“Meanwhile, the Act of the National Assembly has empowered the National Assembly Service Commission as our employer to fix salaries and allowances for its workers as long as it is approved by the National Assembly which has been done,” he noted.

After long waiting for the arrival of the CNA, the PASAN leadership urged all the members to reconvene at the major entrances leading to the National Assembly complex on Thursday, with a view to continuing the protest.

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