Health Workers’ Strike And Salary Disparity

As members of the Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria and other allied staff in Rivers State continued to stay away from work over alleged deductions from their salaries, the situation calls for a holistic view of this subject that appears to play up every now and then.
While the health workers are still on strike, a cross-section of civil servants also cried out over deductions in their June 2013 salaries that they could not find reasons for. This is not to talk about allegations that some other categories of public servants in the state may also have to suffer salary cut.
The situation if not properly handled can cause more confusion and fear in the public service and even throw mud on the unprecedented development taking place in Rivers State. Indeed, that labour leaders in the state would fail to handle the points of dis-agreement to avoid a full blown trade dispute is rather regrettable.
Interestingly, the Commissioner of Information and Communications, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari had explained the action of government and exposed plans by some people to poison the minds of workers at the tertiary educational institutions owned by the Rivers State Government.
Repeatedly, the Head of the Civil Service of Rivers State, Barr. Samuel T. LongJohn had also called for understanding as the salary verification exercise was not to reduce anybody’s salary, but to correct irregularities discovered in the system. In fact, his analysis of the situation makes the whole conflict clear and easily reconcilable.
But as it is often said, when two elephants fight, the grass suffers: The effect of the strike by health workers in Rivers State has become rather obvious, dangerous on the general population and un-acceptable. Clearly, the unions and government can continue to negotiate without staff embarking on strike. They cannot continue to throw stones into the market place and hope to hurt non-relations only.
That is why we call on the health workers to reconsider their approach, return to work and attend to the health needs of the people, while their union leaders continue to find ways of convincing government on why the envisaged changes should not take place.
On the other hand, we expect that the Rivers State Government would do everything in its powers to immediately address the concerns of the health workers. This is more so because, apart from the mileage the state government had covered in the health sector, its commitment to the health of the people should not be allowed to fall on the face.
But the root of the matter must also be treated with utmost responsibility. A situation where disparities are encouraged in the salaries of persons who work for the same government, patronise same market and follow the same set of rules cannot be the best. Worse still, for the system to make some professions look more important than others, can only raise questions and easily create weak links.
The Tide has been inundated with questions on why special salary scales should be given to some professionals under the public service. People have not stopped asking why Directors in some ministries would be paid GL17, while the rest are peaked on GL16. It has been difficult to rationalise why staff in some ministries on GL12 would earn more than a Director in other ministries.
While the confusion of that situation lingers, some new agencies established by the state government also pay their staff so differently. In some cases, these agencies which also work for government take double or even more of the salary of the normal civil servants.
Under the circumstance, health workers may never understand why the financial benefits they enjoy should be taken away from them rightly or wrongly. If the point must be made, the civil servant is paid so poorly in Nigeria. Sadly, as it tends to criminalise the workforce, governments across the country look for every reason to further remove from the salaries of the civil servant.
Even when the decision was reached to raise the National Minimum Wage to N18,000.00, some states ambushed labour and tactically made the increase meaningless. In fact, labour has insisted that no state actually implemented the National Minimum Wage.
In other that simple things like this do not continue to embarrass the system and jeopardise the health of the people or paralyse social services, government must go beyond the now recurrent verification to actually harmonising the pay system in the public service across the country.