The Trade Union Congress (TUC) says it feels undermined by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
The TUC had backed out of the nationwide protest called by
the NLC, saying the decision to hit the streets was not a unanimous one.
The TUC’s absence from the protest led to questions on its
position regarding the prevailing economic hardship in Nigeria.
Speaking on Thursday during an interview with Arise
Television, Festus Usifo, TUC president, said the union is not against
protests, adding that he led the protest against the brutalisation of the NLC
president in Imo.
“But as an
institution, we don’t want people to take us for a ride. Since May 29 when
these challenges came up, three things have happened,” he said.
“The first time we wanted to go for a protest in August, the
NLC announced the protest without informing us.
“My national executives were furious but I said we should
still join the protest and we did. A similar thing happened in September.
“They issued a
two-day warning strike without informing us. Since it was the second time such
a thing was happening, we did not take part in it.
“That then led to a meeting between the leadership of the
TUC and NLC. In that meeting, we established communication and mutual respect.
“We agreed that moving forward, in issues of mutual concern,
the leadership of both bodies must first meet, then decide what needs to be
done before taking it to our organs for modification.
“The second option was that we would have a joint national
executive council (NEC) meeting to take a joint decision.
“The last option was that we would sit together to develop a
memorandum of understanding (MoU) so each party understands how our
relationship works. We implemented the option of a NEC meeting for the Imo
incident.”
Usifo said when the unions jointly issued an ultimatum in
February 8, the TUC expected that three to four days before the expiration of
the ultimatum, both bodies would meet to review what the federal government had
done and then call for a NEC meeting where decisions would be taken.
“But unfortunately, the NLC had a NEC meeting a few days to
the ultimatum’s expiration and took a decision. The NLC leadership were asked
by the NEC to reach out to the TUC regarding the decision but they disregarded
it,” he said.
“The action that was planned was 11 days away so there was
no need to have rushed out. What should have been done after that meeting was
to reach out to TUC to discuss the dates and modalities.
“When we realised we
were being sidelined, we wrote a letter to the NLC to say this has now happened
three times.
“The way out of all this is to develop an MoU and develop
processes so that one party will not feel undermined. TUC as an institution
feels undermined.”
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