NULGE Begins Warning Strike, Today

Voters queuing to cast their votes at Ward 1, Seru Ife East Local Government Area, during the Osun State governorship election in Ile-Ife, recently.

The Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) commences its 3-day warning strike today to press home its demand that deductions should not be made at source from Local Government allocations to Primary Health Care management Board for the payment of health care workers’ salaries.
The warning strike precedes a full-blown strike that is billed to commence next Monday, if by the end of the 3-day strike, government doesn’t meet its demand.
In a telephone interview with The Tide on Friday on whether NULGE would still proceed with the strike as scheduled or government has waded in to resolve their grievances with a view to ensuring the strike does not hold, NULGE State president, Barr. Franklin Ajinwo said, “we ‘ve just finished our State Executive Committee meeting and resolved to go on with the strike. So, the strike would hold as scheduled”.
Ajinwo reiterated the stand of the union on the burning issue of deducting Councils’ allocation at JAAC with effect from this month end to Primary Health Care management Board for payment of health workers; salaries, saying “As a responsible trade union, with strong interest in the administration of Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, we cannot stand by and watch the Local Government system drift again into the era of debts and non-payment of salaries better known as zero-allocation”.
NULGE had earlier written Governor Amaechi on the strike, and likened the directive for the deduction without consultation with the union, as “shaving a man’s hair in his absence”.
He attributed it to a “cabal” that is bent on siphoning the allocations of Local governments, insisting that the decision “will not serve the state nor any well-meaning individual any good except for the few who are focused on what they are going to get by swindling the councils”.
Ajinwo called on the governor to rescind the decision within seven days.

Justus Unye-Awaji