The federal government has
approved the implementation of no work, no pay principle when workers go on
strike.
The federal executive council
(FEC) issued the approval during its weekly meeting in Abuja on Wednesday.
Chris Ngige, minister of labour
and productivity, said the report of the technical committee on industrial
relations matters in the federal public service was adopted at the meeting.
Ngige said the public service in
Nigeria is facing numerous problems, prompting the inauguration of the
committee in August 2016.
“FEC in turn, empanelled a
committee of ten which I chaired to do a government draft white paper on those
contentious areas that the technical committee had looked at,” NAN quoted him
as saying.
“These contentious areas are
enforcement of section 43 of the Trade Dispute Act Law of the Federation 2004
which deals with lock out of workers by their employers without declaring
redundancy appropriately.
“Because in some establishments,
especially in the private sector, workers are locked out by their employers; so
the law there says that if you lock your workers without passing through the
normal channel-due process.
“For the period of the lock out,
the worker is assumed to be at work and will receive all the remunerations and
allowances, benefits accruing to him for the period and that period will also
be counted for him as a pensionable period in the computation of his pension.
“But when workers go on strike,
the principle of no-work-no-pay will also apply because that principle is
enshrined in the same section 43 of the Labour Act.’’
According to Ngige, the section
says that for the period a worker withdraws his/her services, government or
employers are not entitled to pay.
The minister also said the period
for which the worker was absent would not count as part of the pensionable
period in public service.
He said the national industrial
court had made a pronouncement on the law.
Ngige said another area
considered was the issue of public servants remaining permanently in the
executive bodies of trade unions.
“Government realises that some
persons in the public service go into trade union executive positions; hold
offices; and they do that for life; for as long as they are in the service,” he
said.
“In doing so, they will refuse
postings and deployments under the guise that are doing trade union activities;
government says no.
“Government has also said that
there must tenure stipulations because people stay there without tenure; many
organisations give people union positions without tenure; government says there
is no office that does not have tenure.’’
Ngige said henceforth, trade
unions should present constitutions that must have tenures — “at least, maximum
of two tenures for any elective position”.
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