Civil servants in Bayelsa State will on Thursday (today) proceed on an indefinite strike over months of salary arrears owed by the state government.
This is just as the 21-day ultimatum issued by workers’ unions to the Bayelsa State Government to pay all outstanding salaries and allowances elapsed on Wednesday (yesterday).
The state chapters of the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress had issued an ultimatum to the government on Thursday, April 28, 2016.
They had warned that at the end of the ultimatum, they would take an action against the government if it failed to comply with their demands.
State workers are currently owed four months’ salaries with pensioners being owed seven months’ arrears even as local government council workers are being owed 12 months’ unpaid salaries.
The NLC and the TUC, in a joint meeting on Wednesday at their council’s secretariat in Yenagoa, resolved that they could no longer guarantee the existing industrial harmony the state.
The unions said the decision to proceed on strike became imperative as government had refused to yield to their demands to relieve workers of the huge economic pains they were going through.
Bayelsa State NLC Chairman, Ndiomu John-Bipre, and the state TUC Chairman, Tari Dounana, said that the two labour groups in Bayelsa resolved to join the ongoing nationwide strike arising from the hike in the price of fuel and electricity.
A statement by the two groups said, “The council-in-session has also resolved that due to the inability of the state government to measure up to the demands of workers arising from the non-payment of salaries from January till date, workers are directed to proceed immediately on an indefinite strike, taking effect from Thursday, May 19, 2016.
“Workers are by this development advised to stay off their places of work and remain at home as long as the strike may last.”
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