The Vice President of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Adewale Adeyanju has disclosed that the Organised labour will decide next line of action after meeting with the federal government delegation Monday (today).
While speaking with the Punch on the expectations of labour from the meeting scheduled today he said that lot of things had been presented by labour unions, stressing that the government should not act funny.
Adeyanju insisted that the government must meet their demands to cushion the effect of the fuel subsidy removal.
According to him, the June 5 meeting agreed on a seven-point resolution to cushion the effect of the subsidy removal on Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, on Nigerians.
“The Federal Government, the TUC, and the NLC to establish a joint committee to review the proposal for any wage increase or award and establish a framework and timeline for implementation.
The Federal Government, the TUC, and the NLC review the World Bank Financed Cash transfer scheme and propose the inclusion of low-income earners in the programme.
“The Federal Government, the TUC, and the NLC to revive the CNG conversion programme earlier agreed with Labour centres in 2021 and work out detailed implementation and timing,” Gbajabiamila had stated.
“There are a lot of things that labour has been putting before the government. The refineries need to be revamped. We cannot continue to import refined petroleum products and be spending on subsidies all the time.
“Labour has its set of demands and by the time we meet with the government tomorrow we will list them out again,” he stated.
Asked to state what action the NLC would take should the government fail to give in to the demands of labour, considering the plight currently faced by Nigerians Adeyanju replied, “You know we only suspended our strike as a result of the need to meet on this.
“So the government should know that things are becoming difficult and they (the government) should not decide to do anything funny. The strike was only suspended. It was an ultimatum that was given out and it (strike) was suspended.
“So let’s hear what the government has for us and then we will know what to tell our members. It is about the lives of the people. Let’s meet them tomorrow and then labour will come out with its position.”
The labour leader stressed that there’s a high expectation that the meeting would be fruitful and insisted that the NLC would not want the government to behave funny.
“We hope that the meeting is going to be fruitful. The expectations are very high. The nation is watching and people are looking at how the Nigeria Labour Congress is going to handle the situation.
“And the government too will not like to behave funny because they know the country is battling with the increase in fuel pump price and so many things,” he stated.
Speaking on the proposal by oil marketers for the deployment of Compressed Natural Gas at filling stations, the NLC official stated that a technical committee had been set up by the Federal Government to look into the matter.
He said, “The government has set up a technical committee on some of these issues. So I don’t want us to preempt the outcomes that will come out from that meeting tomorrow between labour and the government.”