The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC)’s indefinite strike action in Cross River State has now suffered a great setback as the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has pulled out of the strike.
In a short statement made available to DAILY POST in Calabar this evening (Saturday), the Senior Special Adviser and Chief Press Secretary to Governor Ben Ayade, Mr Christian Ita confirmed the pulling out of the Union from the strike.
The short text message reads, “Breaking News: NULGE pulls out of strike action in Cross River, directs workers to resume work on Monday.” When our correspondent called him on phone, Mr Ita said that Chairmen of the Union in the Eighteen local government signed the communique.
He promised to make the communiqué available to our correspondent. He however, called on all government workers in all the eighteen local government of the state to obey their leaders and resume work on Monday, July 3rd 2017. From the ongoing, the strike action has now suffered a great setback as thousands of workers who are on strike are workers of the local government councils.
It would be recalled that the Executive Chairman of Cross River State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Dr Stephen Odey on Friday urged the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) Cross River State Wing to back out completely from the strike action embarked upon by Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC).
Dr Odey who made the plea during the State Executive Council Meeting of the NUT Cross River State Wing, held at Government Primary School, Henshaw Town, stated that issues raised by the NLC to support the strike action have been handled in respect to teachers; therefore NUT has no business fighting a cause that is unjustifiable.
According to him, “Teachers’ salaries have been paid up to the month of May 2017 with sufficient evidence shown to the NUT Executives, the board has also conducted promotion Interview for the first time without collecting any fee or charge from teachers and promotion letters will be released soon. Retirement requests are usually processed with dispatch, payment of salaries are handled by the board and not consultants”
He added that “teaching and learning materials have been recently supplied to schools for effective service delivery. Matching grants have been accessed from 2012-2016 as counterpart fund was provided by Governor Ben Ayade and over 360 projects have been awarded, about 80,000 plastic tables and chairs have been provided alongside magnetic boards, sporting equipment, books amongst other things”.
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