The Cross River chapter of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has threatened to go on strike over workers’ welfare.

TUC chairman in Cross River Monday Ogbodum, issued the warning on Monday in Calabar.

“The government has a window period till August to fulfil the agreement entered into in the MoU or leave us with no option than to go on strike,” he stated.

Mr Ogbodum said Governor Ben Ayade’s administration had placed the workers’ welfare on the “back burner.”

He said labour was set for a showdown if Mr Ayade’s government failed to act on the memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the workers.

He listed payment of gratuity, incremental and minimum wage, and promotion implementation as some contentious issues.

The TUC chairman also said while retired civil servants (at the state level) were owed gratuities from 2014 to date, those at the local government had not been paid from 2012 to date.

“The agreement we had with the government was that N50 million would be released monthly to offset the payments,” he explained. “But the government realised only N200 million (releases for four months) whereas about N232 million was needed to effectively cover a month’s gratuities.”

The Cross River TUC chair added, “Although they promised and started to implement promotions that have been outstanding since 2016, they stopped all of a sudden while that of local government has yet to commence. Similarly, we are also awaiting the full implementation of the minimum wage as negotiated by stakeholders, including the state government.”

Mr Ogbodum further mentioned that the major issue was the yet-to-be-released balance of N100 million out of the N250 million negotiated and agreed upon by stakeholders, including the government.

He said TUC agreed with the government that workers on salary grade levels one to six would enjoy full minimum wage while those on grade levels seven to 17 would receive percentage increases as significant adjustment, depending on their levels.

“It’s been almost three years after, and we have yet to get this balance. If the economy has yet to improve, why embark on frivolous spending?” stated the union leader.

(NAN)