Strike : Workers, Business Community Disagree With Labour

Civil servants, the business community and parents in Damaturu, Yobe State yesterday condemned the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) warning strike which began yesterday, describing it as grossly unnecessary and counter-productive.
A cross section of the respondents, who spoke noted that schools and other public institutions in the state were still providing services in spite of the directive by the NLC for workers to embark on warning strike.
Abdullahi Musa, a civil servant, said: “Time has come for the trade unions to be decentralised for every state to face its peculiar problems, to avoid holding the country to ransom of unnecessary strike.
“Some state and local government workers have not been paid salaries for several months, NLC has never intervened but they drag every state into problems affecting federal civil servants; that is gross injustice.
“Similarly, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) does not fight for the staff of state owned universities but pull state universities into affairs of federal-owned universities, it shouldn’t be so.”
Alhaji Bukar Kaku, a businessman, said strikes had always been an exercise in futility, warning that it would affect the economy badly.