The public workers in Kogi state on Tuesday suspended their six weeks old strike following the intervention of the new state governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello.
The governor also pledged to ensure that workers in the employ of the state government are paid latest by 25 of every month.
Nigerian Tribune gathered that the labour unions in the state led by the state chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Onuh Edoka, had met with the governor on Sunday to resolve the impasse between government and the workers.
Following the resolutions at the meeting in which Bello promised to pay one month salary, the workers on Tuesday held a meeting of the leaders of the leadership of the labour unions where it was agreed that the workers should resume work today.
The NLC chairman however said at the end of the meeting with Bello that workers and government had signed agreement on the resolution of the crisis and the workers are exlected back at their duty posts on Wednesday (today).
He said, “It has not been too easy for the workers of the state, we had series of meetings with the outgone government but we were unable to reach a compromise because most of the demands of workers were not yielded to until the new governor came in and had a discussion with us.
“At our meeting on January 27, 2016, we were able to arrive at a far reaching decision and he appealed and pleaded with us to see reason why we should suspend the strike on the immediate things he would provide for the workers on the terms of agreement for which we entered into and had a resolution with him and those that cannot be done immediately comiittees would be put in place to look into them
“We had meeting with the leadership of the NLC, TUC and Joint Negotiating Council and at the end of the day we have been able to agree to the request of the governor on the ground that one months salary will be paid to workers, while as the bailout comes, it wil be used to liquidation the indebtedness of government to workers, we have also agreed that since this is a new government, we need to allow it to settle down and stabilise while all other demands of workers will be looked into”.
Addressing the workers, Bello expressed regret that government was unable to pay its workers that had diligently performed their duties.
He however pledged to vigorously pursue the bailout funds that were due to the state to enable government clear the entire arrears of salaries of state and local government workers and primary school teachers across the state.
Credit: Tribune