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2019: Workers won’t vote for govs who owe salaries, says Labour leader

 

The General Secretary, Textile Union Workers, Issa Aremu, yesterday, said the 2019 election would be determined by dignity of labour and commitment in payment of workers’ salary.

Aremu said this in an interview with newsmen in Lagos while responding to government’s plan to raise workers’ salary after negotiation by the newly inaugurated 30-member committee on new minimum wage.

According to him, governors who refuse to pay salary of workers when due and those who criminalise workers on account of deficiency in skill will not get workers’ votes.

He added that labour would be partisan and political in its interest, based on those who paid salary.

“Dignity of labour will not be ensured if workers are not paid when due. Workers have the right to employment,” he added.

Aremu said labour would conduct competence test for governors with a view to judging them based on their indices.

“It will involve skills like: ‘do you pay workers when due; Do you engage workers in social dialogue or in dictatorship policies?,” he queried.

He noted that for the country to properly recover from recession, workers’ salary must be increased.

He advised the 30-member minimum wage committee inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari not to spend more than six months to dialogue as lots of time had already gone by.

 


…as another Kogi civil servant commits suicide 

47-year-old Abdullahi Uye Zhiya from Oguma in Bassa Local Government of Kogi State has committed suicide by intentionally drinking a dose of substance suspected to be poisonous chemical.

His frustration may not be unconnected to the non-payment of his 12 months salaries.

Close family sources told Daily Post that for over one year, life had not been favourable as everything turned for the worst for him.

Another family source confirmed that Zhiya was a hardworking man, and that “because he had been without salary for several months, his situation became unbearable.”

It was gathered that many relations have been reaching out to him in terms of help, but it was not sufficient hence his decision to end it in death.

Another account from his relatives indicated that the deceased may not have taken his life because of backlog of salaries but for other challenges which he refused to disclose.

According to the source, “We suspect that what happened has a spiritual undertone. The deceased at some point became withdrawn, but even when we asked he was never forthcoming.”

The deceased as the chief store officer at the State Universal Basic Education office in Oguma was described by his colleagues as an easy going man who avoided trouble.

 

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