Labour Shelves Planned Strike In Imo

The organised labour in Imo State said last Thursday in Owerri that it had shelved its planned strike, pending the outcome of its meeting with the state government.

The Chairman of Joint Negotiating Council of the Imo public service, Mr Coleman Okwara, announced the postponement while addressing workers at the state secretariat on Port Harcourt Road.

Okwara told the workers that the state government had invited the leadership of the workers to a meeting on Monday, over their grievances that would have necessitated the strike.

The chairman, however, recounted the reasons for which the industrial action was contemplated, including the deduction of one per cent of every worker’s monthly salary by the government.

He said the deduction was being made without workers’ consent, pointing out that the government ought to have consulted with the workers before such a deduction.

Okwara said Imo workers were against the firing of Chief Otu Okere, a permanent secretary in the state’s civil service commission, by Gov. Rochas Okorocha’s administration.

Okwara also noted that the workers were not happy because their colleagues in the state specialist hospitals had not been paid for the past five months.

Okere’s sack was linked to his stand on the cancellation of the controversial appointment of 10,000 youths into the state civil service in 2011.