The Nigerian Government appealed for a 2 week grace period to finalise the demands made by organized labour following the recently announced strike.
This was disclosed by Mr Simon Lalong after a closed-door meeting with the Trade Union Congress(TUC) on Monday in Abuja.
The Minister noted that the meeting aims to avert the proposed nationwide warning strike by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
FG’s appeal
The Labour Minister noted that the Tinubu administration plans to address those issues within the period of two weeks and come back for further discussion, adding:
“Some of the issues we discussed are those that are very urgent. There are some that will require a long span of time. This was the basis of our discussion.
“We agreed that there should be no strike within the two-week period while we are doing our deliberations and working towards realising some of these objectives,” he said.
Mr Festus Osifo, the President of TUC, said some of the issues requiring urgent attention included the implementation of palliatives and wage awards, adding that tax exemptions and allowances to public sector workers plus modalities for N70 billion Small and Medium Enterprises and the RTEAN crisis are other areas that need to be discussed.
“In the palliatives that were rolled out, we have not seen anything put in place for federal workers.
“We need a wage award. The palliatives rolled out by the government are not far-reaching. We believe that the government can do much more,”