TUC Pledges To Protect Health Workers, Others

The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, has vowed to resist any law that undermines the interest of workers and Nigerians in general.

Chairman of the Rivers State Council of the Union, Comrade Chika Onuegbu, said this in Port Harcourt over the weekend when the National Executive of the Nigeria Union of Pharmacists, Medical Scientists and Professional Allied of Medicine (NUPMTPAM), an affiliate of the TUC, paid him a courtesy call in his office.

Comrade Onuegbu, was critical of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), stating that some clauses of the bill are “anti people” and should be expunged.

He said critical aspects of the bill such as management of the host community fund are left at the discretion of the Minister, a position he said “negates the principle of popular participation and promotes executive over powerness”.

He alerted that “if the host community fund are not directly managed by the people for their development priorities, it would be diverted for sponsorship of electioneering campaigns and other obnoxious practices”.

He lamented the fact that TUC is alienated from making input in the process of legislation through participation in public hearing.

He further pointed out that any law that lacks popular participation is not binding on the people and should be violated.

The TUC Chairman thanked the body for hosting their National Executive Council and delegates conference in Rivers State, and called on them to protest their non inclusion in the Joint Negotiation Council, and noted that such denials was against the principle of collective bargaining.

Earlier in his remark, the national president of the body, Comrade Felix Faniran, had thanked the TUC Chairman for his support and pledged to use every legitimate measures of industrial relations to press home their demands.

He decried the fact that the health sector had been hijacked by one particular professional body, while others in the sectors suffer untold marginalisation.

He said members of the Associations of medical laboratory scientists cannot rise to be head of their own department no matter how qualified, and also detested the non inclusion of NUPMTPAM in the Joint Negotiation Council of many states.

Taneh Beemene