Labour To Presidency, NASS: Reject El-Rufa’I’s, Committee’s Wage Recommendation

The Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), has called on the Presidency and National Assembly to reject the recommendations of the Governor Nasir El-Rufa’I’s committee on restructuring which called for the deregulation of wages.

In a joint statement, the National President, Comrade Bobboi Kaigama, and Secretary-General, Comrade Alade Lawal, of ASCSN, urged President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly to reject the recommendation of the committee set up by the All Progressive Congress, said the recommendation that labour be removed from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent List was anti-national unity.

“We, therefore, believe that labour like other institutions such as the army, navy, air force, customs service, immigration, etc, are symbols of national unity and should accordingly be retained in the Exclusive Legislative List”, they said in the statement.

According to the association, el-Rufa’I has been waging a war of attrition against trade unions in Kaduna state and at a time tried to dissolve all trade unions thereby demanding that thousands of workers in the state should re-apply to join any labour union of their choice contrary to extant labour laws, judicial pronouncements, and Conventions 87 and 98 of the International Labour Organisation, ILO, on the right of workers to organise and engage in collective bargaining.

“As we speak, he has issued a circular stopping check-off deduction from salaries of union members in the state.

“Recently, Governor El-Rufa’I, in continuation of his anti-workers agenda, also sacked 21,000 teachers in Kaduna State apart from other atrocities he has been unleashing on helpless workers in the state.

“It is not surprising that the Kaduna state governor has used the cover of the APC restructuring panel to want to completely decimate the trade unions in Nigeria by recommending that wage and other related labour issues should be removed from the Exclusive Legislative list to the Concurrent List to give El-Rufa’I and his fellow governors the opportunity to start paying peanuts as wages to their workers or no salary at all.”