MoU: Labor Unions To Convene With Fed Govt Next Week

For the second time in a week, the eagerly anticipated meeting between organized labor and the federal government to discuss the status of the 15-point Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) implementation has been rescheduled to the following week.

The MoU was mutually signed on October 2, 2023, as a last-resort condition for organized labor, represented by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), to call off their planned nationwide strike in response to the hardships faced by Nigerians following the removal of fuel subsidies in May this year.

Among the key terms of the agreement was the federal government’s commitment to implement the MoU within 30 days, a deadline that has now elapsed.

While the government has initiated certain aspects of the agreement, including the establishment of seven Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) centers for gas-fueled vehicles and allocating 210 billion naira in the 2023 supplementary budget for wage awards of N35,000 each to approximately 1.5 million federal government employees.

NLC national president, Comrade Joe Ajaero, who briefed journalists on Sunday, disclosed that the new meeting, originally slated for Monday but subsequently postponed to yesterday, could not be held. The purpose of this meeting was to assess the progress of MoU implementation.

However, last week, the federal government faced criticism when the labor center accused the Minister of Labour and Employment, Simon Lalong, of obstructing the ratified agreement by endorsing and legitimizing Alhaji Tajudeen Agbede’s-led faction. This was perceived as undermining the ratified agreement and breaching item 6 of the MoU.

This situation has escalated to the point where NLC has pledged to boycott any meeting with the federal government in which the minister is in attendance.