Femi Adi/Kaduna
Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State
Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC and Trade Union Congress, TUC, on Saturday threatened to shut down Kaduna State should Governor Nasir El-Rufai fail to expunge the portion of the verification form that states that civil servants should decide whether or not they want to belong to labour union in the new state government’s rules of engagement.
According to the Kaduna State Chapter of NLC, the state government had issued out a form , titled ‘Special Exercise on Staff Verification’ , where it requested all workers on its payroll to either fill ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, for membership of union.
Addressing a large crowd of workers that converged on the Kaduna NLC Secretariat Saturday, the Chairman of TUC, Comrade Boiboi Kaigama and that of NLC Comrade Ayuba Waba in their separate speeches said no reasonable government will deny workers of their fundamental rights to belong to a union for protection of their rights.
The union chairmen both however, asked Governor El-Rufai to expunge the portion of the verification form that appeared to be anti- labour union or face very strong labour actions that will ground the state.
Waba, who said no worker has right to opt out of union and enjoy minimum wage, emphasised that the 1948 UN Charter gives rights to workers to belong to trade union of their choice.
“If workers have gone through several verification exercises, why this one again? Any verification form issued without the consent of either labour or government is unacceptable.”
While urging all labour leaders in the state to call an emergency meeting to discuss and decide the next line of action before Wednesday when the joint labour will meet to take a final decision, Waba ordered all civil servants in the state not fill any …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
