Rivers State public and private sector workers enthusiastically supported the indefinite strike action launched on Monday by the country’s two biggest workers’ unions, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC).
Nigerian labour centres has mobilised workers for an indefinite industrial action against the Federal Government’s failure to agree to an appropriate minimum wage for Nigerian workers and the government’s refusal to reverse the country’s stratospheric spike in energy tariffs.
In Port Harcourt, the state capital, and its surroundings, it was found that the majority of governmental and business establishments, including banks, schools, courts, and Federal and State Secretariats were all shut with no worker seen in the premises.
The courts were also not spared as State High Court premises, the magistrate and Appeal Courts were also under lock and key, so the head office of the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company, PHED; the Nigerian Mainstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NMDPRC) and Nigerian Petroleum Upstream Regulatory Commissions (NPURC), the Secretariat of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), the Nigerian Population Commission, the Federal Inland Revenue,
To help enforce compliance, several chapter executives from affiliate unions erected canopies in front of the locked gates to their respective offices.
Alex Agonwo, Chairman of the Rivers State chapter of NLC had at the weekend confirmed that the industrial action shall be total.
Speaking on a radio programme monitored in Port Harcourt, he assured that there would be total compliance with the strike in Rivers.
He said that members had been directed by the NLC and TUC on total withdrawal of services.
He said; “The airports will be affected because all our members there will withdraw their services. The port authority will be affected, the oil and gas sector will be affected.
“The transportation sector, all the road transport workers and other affiliates.
I’m meeting with my joint action committee, same with the TUC”.
He stated that there was going to be a task force to enforce compliance explaining that the strike was inevitable.
“We feel that pains that this strike will cause and want to tell the masses to bear with us. It was avoidable but because of the way the Federal Government has handled negotiations, we had no choice than to embark on the strike”, Agonwo stated.
Also speaking, the State Chairman, National Union of Electricity Workers, John Ozomata, said the Workers’ action had become necessary to draw the attention of the Federal Government to the rising hardship workers and their dependants are exposed to following the rising inflation.
Ozomata and members of his Executives were seen mounting blockades at the entrance of the office whose gates were tightly secured with shackles and heavy-duty padlocks.
He said, ” Electricity workers joined NLC indefinite strike because the Federal Government is trying to reduce us to dead working corpse.”
Asked why he and the leadership of his office Union are lurking around the office rather than staying at home as directed, said, he said; “We’re on strike and when strikes happen, nobody is expected to go to work; stay at home and expect the directives of your union chairman, but we’re aware that some persons will flaunt the directives, that is why we’re here to enforce compliance of all to the directives.
Our Correspondent met with State Chairman of the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN), Golden Ekpirikpo who lamented the sufferings of Nigerian workers saying that workers’ monthly take home could no longer take them home.
“Nigerian workers are suffering, the suffering is too much. Our take home can no longer take us home, and nothing us being done. We can no longer pretend that all is well in Nigeria, it is not well,” he stated.