By Harry Awurumibe Editor Abuja Bureau
Apparently to send a clear message that the organised labour is not to be treated with levity, leaders of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and their Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) counterparts have declared an immediate and total strike in Imo state from midnight Tuesday (today).
This is even as both Unions have also resolved to declare a nationwide strike by Tuesday, November 14, if their demands are not met by the federal and Imo state governments.
Prompt News reports that NLC and TUC leadership reached the decision at their “extraordinary”
National Executive Council (NEC).meeting today in the nation’s capital Abuja.
The latest strike has been precipitated by last Wednesday’s attack, brutalisation and battering of the NLC President, Comrade Joe AJaero, and other labour leaders in Owerri by thugs believed by NLC to have been hired by the Imo state government and supervised by one Chinasa Nwaneri, an aide to Governor Hope Uzodimma, besides other matters.
Ajaero had gone to Owerri last week to join a planned labour protest over none payment of backlog of salaries, allowances and gratuities to Imo workers and the audacity to lead the union members to protest has landed him into hospital where he is still fighting for his life after thugs and overzealous security agents are alleged to have manhandled the labour leader.
However, investigations revealed that civil servants in Imo state are being owed backlog of their monthly salaries while the state government has refused to pay the National Minimum Wage to its workers although the government has vehemently claimed to not owing workers.
