Yesterday, the National Industrial Court, NIC, sitting in Abuja, stopped the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Unions Congress, TUC, from embarking on strike today. This came as Organised Labour and its civil society allies, yesterday, vowed to go ahead with the planned indefinite strike from today to make government reverse the N145 per litre pump price of petrol, despite the restraining order by the court
Meanwhile, Senate, yesterday, threw its weight behind President Muhammadu Buhari’s hike in the price of fuel to N145 per litre from N86.50 Organised Labour’s position came on a day president of a faction of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Mr. Joe Ajaero, said Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, National Union of Electricity Employees, NUEE, and others would not join the strike.
Consequently, the Wabba faction and the Federal Government, yesterday, agreed to set up a joint technical committee to review the new fuel pump price template of N135-N145 within the next two weeks and also work towards reviewing the current national minimum wage of N18, 000.
Justice Adejumo further ordered all the parties to maintain status quo until the legal dispute was settled. The order followed an ex-parte application filed by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN. Determined to abort the planned strike action, the AGF approached the NIC, begging it to restrain the labour unions from “shutting down the nation”.
Relying on Section 14 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, the Federal Government insisted that it would not be “in the national interest” for the NLC and TUC to proceed on nationwide strike over the fuel price increase. Malami argued that no amount of damages could serve as compensation, if the labour unions were allowed to shut down the economy.
NLC, TUC insist on strike after court order; say court order is black market injunction
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