Oyo Workers Begin 3-day Warning Strike
*As OSG Threatens To Implement ‘No-work- no-one Pay’ Rule
Oyo State workers, on Wednesday, commenced a three-day warning strike to press home their demands which include the reinstatement of sacked 256 staff of the Ladoke Akintola University Teaching Hospital, Ogbomoso.
The directive for the workers to withdraw their services was issued by the joint section of the state-executive councils of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the Joint Negotiation Council (JNC) after a meeting held at the Labour House, Agodi, the state secretariat of the NLC.
The labour leaders said that the three days warning strike is to compel the state government to address the 13 week old strike of the state-owned tertiary institutions, the sack of 256 members of staff of Ladoke Akintola University Teaching Hospital, Ogbomoso and the lingering complaints of workers in the health sector as presented by the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU).
Other issues that prompted the strike, they said, include the issues of unpaid pensions and gratuities of retired primary school teachers accumulating to 56 months and stall in workers’ promotion since 2010.
Olojede, who spoke alongside the chairman, JNC/TUC, Mr Emmanuel Ogundiran, and JAC executives of the tertiary institutions said that the state government has shown continued insensitivity to the plight of workers of the state’s tertiary institutions who were owed 17 months’ salaries.
He asked the state government to rescind its decision to sack 256 members of staff of LAUTECH teaching hospital, lamenting what he described as the woes, hardship and state of hopelessness of the sacked workers.
In a swift reaction, the Oyo State government has declared the unilateral declaration of a 3-day warning strike by workers in the state as illegal, unwarranted and unjustifiable.
Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Alhaji Olalekan Alli, in a statement in Ibadan, appealed to the striking workers to shelve their illegal unilateral industrial action.
Similarly, government enjoined all workers in the state not to absent themselves from duty, saying doing so will attract the no-work, no-pay rule according to the trade dispute law.