NRC workers protests in Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja

SPN seeks upward review of minimum wage for Oyo workers

Activities at Obafemi Awolowo Train Station, Moniya, Ibadan, yesterday shut down as the Nigerian Union of Railway Workers and Senior Staff Association protested against poor pay by the Federal Government.

The protesters were seen with various placards such as: “Railway workers’ life matters”; “We want standard condition of service”; “FG, pay us good salary and allowance; “We are suffering, give us enhanced salary regime,” among others.

ALSO, thousands of passengers were yesterday stranded in Lagos as workers of the NRC began the three-day warning strike over poor welfare.
 
Scores of passengers were stranded both at the Mobolaji Johnson Train station in Ebute-Metta in Lagos, Abuja-Kaduna and Ibadan.

Some of the passengers, who had besieged the train station to board trains were turned back by the protesting workers, as all the gates leading to the NRC premises were locked up.

MEANWHILE, the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN), yesterday, urged an upward review of the consequential adjustment of the N30,000 minimum wage in Oyo State, following the increase in the state’s internally-revenue generation (IGR).

In a statement signed by the Oyo State Secretary of the party, Ayodeji Adigun, the party specifically urged the state leadership of labour unions to take steps towards the actualisation of the call.

The statement stated: “The salary earned by workers in the state has been stagnated despite the agreement made with the state labour leaders that the salaries will always be subjected to an upward review every three months once there is a record of IGR growth.

“This agreement has not been implemented since the completion of the negotiation for the consequential adjustment of the N30,000 new minimum wage for over two years now.

“It is in the light of this that we of the SPN see the recent report of the IGR growth as a call on Governor Seyi Makinde-led government to set in motion the machinery to effect an upward review in the salary of workers in the state as well as to meet all their outstanding demands without compromising the needs of other categories of the oppressed working people who are not salary earners in the state.”