In order to allow the federal government to carry out its obligations under the agreements it has made with organized labor unions, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved a 30-day implementation plan for the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two parties.
The Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) had threatened to go on an indefinite strike starting on October 3 due to the extreme suffering that Nigerians were going through as a result of President Bola Tinubu’s elimination of fuel subsidy in September.
The labor leaders came to an agreement to halt the planned action in an MoU signed by Joe Ajaero, the president of the NLC, Festus Osifo, the president of the TUC, and representatives of the federal government, but they were forced to halt the strike after meeting with a government delegation on October 1 to engage the unions as a measure to avert the nationwide strike.
Following the FEC meeting at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Monday, the unions agreed to suspend their strike for 30 days, with parties agreeing to “abide by the dictates of social dialogue in all our future engagements,” according to Minister of Labour and Employment Simon Lalong, who briefed State House correspondents following the meeting.
A note on the implementation of the labor agreement was delivered to the council, and the Minister stated that the government was also making a resolution to combat any outside intervention in union operations.
“We presented a memo from the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment and the memo was basically on the agreement between government and the labour. You are already aware that 15 items are parts of the agreement.
“But we went beyond mere agreement, we told them that something different this time is happening because one, part of the agreement is to file it in the court of law which we have set the process already.
“And the other one was the presidential approval. There cannot be any presidential approval more than the Federal Executive Council. So we presented them to the Federal Executive Council.
“We analyzed each and every aspect of the agreement and to show the genuineness and also provide for harmonious and good industrial relationship and that was why it was presented and it was approved for implementation.
“It was agreed that within 30 days , there must be evidence of implementation and that was the basis of presenting to the Federal Executive Council the memo and the Federal Executive Council also approved it and within these 30 days, we will go on with the implementation of the agreement between labour and government,” Lalong said.
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