By Olufemi Oni, Ilorin
The Chairman, Kwara State Council of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Muritala Saheed Olayinka, has warned labour leaders in state councils to avoid confrontation with their respective Governors, saying that combative posture with government won’t guarantee welfare of their members.
“You can’t be fighting government and think you can achieve your aims and objective. Your sole responsibility is to assure that the welfare of workers is maximally guaranteed”, he said.
Olayinka said this during an interaction with newsmen in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, enjoining labour leaders to embrace peaceful dialogue with their Governors so as to achieve optimum welfare for their members.
The state NLC Chairman said a lot can be achieved for workers with a roundtable discussion between the labour leadership and the government, noting that the era of lamentation and confrontation is gone in the nation’s organised labour.
“It is not when you bang the chairs and tables that your voice can be heard and recognised as a very effective labour leader. A labour system, which we are adopting today, is the one of using your common sense and wisdom to pilot the affairs of your members in the state. You need to come to roundtable discussions or else you will continue to lament, and the era of lamentation is gone”, the labour leader assured.
He also urged the labour leaders to ask questions from their state governors in order to get clearer pictures of the situation rather than just lamenting.
“You have to be part and parcel of the administration by asking questions in order to know the real situation of things, and through dialogue, you can achieve a lot for your members”, the NLC chairman said.
He urged the labour leaders to endeavour to support the development efforts of their respective State Governors and be agents of development.
On the recent nationwide protest tagged “End Bad Governance” and the resolve of Kwara NLC to abstain, Olayinka said the labour body did not know the organizers of the protest.
He said: “We can’t interfere in a matter that doesn’t concern us. We at NLC are not party to end bad governance protest, we don’t know the people behind the protest because we were not carried along.”
The NLC boss also described the organizers as people planning to destroy the peace of the state, saying that “we can’t stand to be in the midst of those planning to destroy the peace of the state because in a state where there is no peace, their development can never be guaranteed”.
Speaking on the implementation of the new minimum wage in Kwara State, Olayinka noted that Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has assured the workers he will implement it very soon.
He said, “The Governor has assured us that he is committed to paying the new minimum wage, only what is remaining is the consequential adjustment. He said he wants it to be paid in August but unfortunately the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission couldn’t meet up on time with the template for operation and it is only through the template that we can have effective negotiations for beautiful implementation”.
Olayinka added that the state labour leadership had reached its Adamawa State counterpart where the minimum wage had just been implemented.
“We spoke with Adamawa and they gave us a hint on how it is being done and we believe that very soon Kwara workers will smile”, he said.
Olayinka assured that the pensioners would not be left out as beneficiaries from the new minimum wage.