Rivers Signs MoU With Judiciary Workers Over Pay

Following the crippling of activities in  Rivers State courts for two weeks by striking judiciary staff, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed by the workers union and the state authorities.

Details of the MoU were not disclosed to  the media  as at Tuesday but The Tide  reliably gathered that the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) had quickly intervened to forestalla prolonged dispute.

The Tide was reliably informed that both the Secretary to the Rivers State Government, Magnus Abe including Commissioner for  Justice and Attorney General of the State Barrister Ken Chikere are among the committee members working on modalities to meet demands made by the state branch of Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUDUN).

Trouble stated two weeks ago, when JUDUN members decided to down tools in protest of a consolidated salary structure, which the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Kutigi had ordered the states to pay its workers.

According to the orders, State Governments were mandated to negotiate with judiciary workers on the implementation of the new salary structure.

As stipulated in the new structure, the least judicial worker at level 1 is explected to earn about, N21,750 based on consolidated calculations.

Speaking to The Tide on why the workers down tools, Secretary of JUDUN, Rivers State branch, Prince Opurum said initially the state was adamant to negotiate with the workers, but that the Attorney-General of the sate has commenced talks.

Opurum stated that the workers had resumed work early this week based on the agreement that their agitation would be looked into.

However, he warned that , “within that report date if nothing is done by December 31st, we would resume an indefinite strike on 1st January 2010.”