Ibadan – The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) in Oyo State on Friday said it had shelved its proposed strike to protest the five months unpaid salaries of workers.
The state NLC Chairman, Mr Waheed Olojede, who spoke with newsmen at the NLC Secretariat, said the union shelved the strike following a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by Gov. Abiola Ajimobi and labour leaders.
“We reached an agreement after a meeting with the governor on Thursday evening where we agreed that the entire monthly allocation released to the state by the Federal Government should be used to pay the salaries.
“Initially, 90 per cent of the allocation was used to pay workers’ salaries but this has not solved any problem.
“ So we asked the government to give us the entire allocation which is 100 per cent,” Olojede said.
According to him, labour expects that the allocation for states will increase since the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had promised not to deduct money owed by debtor states for two years.
Olojede also said that labour and government had agreed to work together to increase Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in the state by constituting a committee on this.
“ We agreed to name it the “Joint Revenue Mobilsation Committee’’ which will be .inaugurated soon.
“ The committee’s duty is to improve and increase the IGR in the state,” he said.
The NLC chairman, however, called on workers to be patient and allow the government and labour put into operation the new MoU.
It will be recalled that the NLC on March 29 gave the state government a seven-day ultimatum to open dialogue with it or face an industrial action. (NAN)