Labour commends governors on prompt payment of salaries

While commending state governors that live to their avowed responsibilities of paying the salaries of workers and pension of retirees in the respective states, stakeholders have urged defaulting governors to put an end to the crisis of workers pay in their domain.

As the agitation against the States government that have reneged to pay their workers their monthly salaries rages, a member of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and General Secretary of the Textile Workers’ Union, Comrade Issa Aremu, in a statement, commended the renewed energy of NLC leadership to ensure public employees in states are paid as when due.

Besides, Aremu also backed the joint Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC)’s 30-day ultimatum issued to the Kogi State
Government to pay the seven months outstanding workers salaries, “failing which the state faces total labour protests”, just as he also urged government ministries at Federal and State levels to remit contributory pensions of their workers to Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs).

He singled out State Governors like Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, Alhaji Abdulfatai Ahmed of Kwara State and Malam Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State as “labour-friendly state governors who pay salaries, pensions, promotion increments and yearly increments of their civil servants”.

According to the labour leader, “the greatest assets of states are their employees”, stressing that “governors can only demand for discipline and improved productivity from their employees if their workforce are well motivated”.Comrade Aremu observed that “nothing, including declining oil revenue could justify delayed or non-payment of workers’ salaries”, while adding that payments of salaries and pension are legitimate entitlements and mark of corporate responsibility of any employer.

He therefore urged “governors to reorder their resources in such a way that labour is seen as a critical factor of development before anything else”.“Whoever employs must pay the working man or woman as at when due”, he added.Aremu likened non-payment of salaries to what he called “economicide”, which he described as “a systemic destruction of lives of workers on account of lack of means of livelihood adding that many workers have died due to non-payment of salaries that were never adequate even when promptly paid”.

Meanwhile, the labour chief urged Governors who regularly “pay their core civil servants to ensure that their local government employees and teachers are also regularly paid”, pointing out that “state workers are not divisible when it comes to compensation just as when it comes to workers’ service delivery and productivity to the state”.

He argued that governors can only be certified labour friendly if all workers in their states, private and public sectors, local and state employees are equally dignified with prompt salaries payment.

While hailing President Mohammadu Buhari for bailing out debtor states in meeting the pay obligations to their workers, Aremu said “state governors must apply same principle to debtor- local governments”, adding that “the 1999 Constitution says that the primary duty and responsibility as well as the primary purpose of government is the security and welfare of the people which can only be made possible with suitable and adequate shelter, suitable and adequate food,reasonable national (minimum) living wage, old age care and pensions,and unemployment, sick benefits and welfare of the disabled”.

While noting that as the economy is officially acknowledged to be in recession, Aremu said that President Buhari administration should
intensify move towards reindustrialization through diversification and “wage-led economic recovery”.

He further observed that the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria(MAN) had raised the alarm about low demand for locally produced
goods, leading to high inventories and low capacity utilization,adding, “Nigeria can only diversify its economy if workers as consumers are well paid to patronize locally produced goods and services”.

According to him, the Anti-corruption campaign cannot be sustained when workers do not receive adequate salaries on time, just as he added, “a hungry worker is not only angry but vulnerable to graft.There is a link between economic growth and wage payment”. ENDS.