The Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, NASU, has accused the Federal Government of playing politics with the welfare of Nigerian workers, saying officials often provoke industrial actions through insincerity and neglect, only to turn around and punish workers for exercising their rights.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the union?s National Executive Council, NEC, meeting held in Abuja, NASU General Secretary, Prince Peters Adeyemi, said the government?s repeated threats to enforce the ?No Work, No Pay? policy were deliberate attempts to intimidate and criminalise legitimate trade union activities.

He warned that such actions betray a double standard and insincerity that continue to undermine industrial harmony and workers? trust in government.

?As we bring this session to a close, it is important to address a matter that continues to test the patience and resolve of trade unions in this country ? the recurring threat by Government officials to invoke the provisions of Section 42(1)(a) of the Trade Disputes Act, popularly known as the ?No Work, No Pay? policy.

?Let it be clearly stated that this threat is nothing but a deliberate attempt to intimidate, silence, and criminalize legitimate trade union actions. Union leaders are not irrational individuals who wake up one morning to declare strikes for sport. Strikes are not tea parties. They are painful, last-resort measures provoked by the consistent failures, neglect, and insincerity of Government officials in honouring agreements freely entered into with Unions.

?Government will willingly sign Collective Bargaining Agreements, only to turn around and disregard the implementation. When the time comes for renegotiation, Government representatives turn deaf ears, drag their feet, and frustrate the process until Unions are compelled, by necessity, to draw national and presidential attention through strike actions.?

Adeyemi explained that NASU has always followed due process as laid down in the Trade Disputes Act, but lamented that government officials often treat trade disputes with levity, convening cosmetic meetings merely to ?fulfil all righteousness.

?When Unions, after exhausting all lawful avenues, resort to strike actions, the same officials begin to brandish the ?No Work, No Pay? stick, portraying workers as unpatriotic. Let it be known that no Government official is more patriotic than the Nigerian worker. It is the workers? children, relatives, and neighbours who attend public schools and suffer the consequences of strikes, not the children of high-ranking officials who study in elite private or foreign institutions.?

He described as hypocrisy and incompetence the tendency of government to provoke strikes through neglect and then criminalise those same strikes, stressing that at the level of the International Labour Organisation, ILO, strikes have never been declared a crime but recognised as a legitimate instrument of industrial relations.

?The same officials who shout ?No Work, No Pay? are often silent when workers have gone for months without pay, in clear violation of Section 15 of the Labour Act CAP 198, which mandates that wages must be paid at regular intervals not exceeding one month. When workers work and are not paid, that too is an offence, yet no one threatens ?No Pay, No Work?.

?It is high time this double standard and insincerity are addressed. NASU will continue to stand firm, guided by the law, and committed to justice, fairness, and dignity for all workers,? he declared. (Vanguard)

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