The Nigerian Labour Congress is threatening to embark upon a three-day general strike inside the West African state which has the continent's largest population. The electrical workers union will join the NLC work-stoppage.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Saturday, 06 November 2010 00:00
From Saxone Akhaine, Kaduna News
Nigeria Guardian Newspaper
IRKED by the poor condition of service and general infrastructural decay in the power sector, the Electricity workers in the country have resolved to join the Nigeria Labour Congress, (NLC) during its three day-warning strike over improved conditions of service slated for November 10, 2010.
They also threatened to campaign against President Goodluck Jonathan in the forth- coming elections if the Federal Government failed to rescind its decision to disengage 50,000 of its members.
The Assistant General Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employees, (NUEE), in the North, Moses Amedu unfolded the plans of the Union in Kaduna yesterday, during a prayer session aimed at halting the planned privatization of the power sector.
The prayer session was jointly organised by the NUEE and the Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Company, (SSAEAC), just as they carried placards denouncing the proposed retrenchment exercise.
Amedu told the workers that the directive to join the NLC during the three-day strike came from the national secretariat of the union.
He said there would be total blackout in the country within the three-day strike adding that apart from these measures, the NUEE would protest the sacking of its members.
Meanwhile, a major consultant to the three labour unions in the power sector got more than he bargained when Joe Ajaero, General Secretary of the NUEE, denied knowing the consultant and asked him to quickly leave a meeting in the conference room of the Ministry of Labour convened to resolve some knotty labour issues in the electricity power sector reform programme.
Anthony Osoroh, head of a Lagos-based estate management firm who has been representing the Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies (SSAEAC), Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP Electricity Sector) as well as NUEE in the lingering effort to recover some choice properties belonging to the union members, was shocked by the denial.
“I was the person who collected the letters from the Labour Minister inviting the three unions to this meeting, held long discussions with them in Lagos, agreed with them on the issues for deliberation, and the number of people to represent each group in the tripartite meeting,” Osoroh complained to others who attended for the meeting.
It was not just Osoroh who got the bitter side of the NUEE secretary. Officials of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and the Presidential Task Force on Power were declared “personae non grata” by Ajaero “ because we do not recognize the bodies they represent,” despite the explanation by Labour Minister Oleka Wogu that their organizations were creations of legitimate laws of the land.
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