The Nigeria Labour Congress has hit back at the Federal Government decision to introduce a no work/no pay rule saying they are just making empty threats. President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Mr. Ayuba Wabba, made the assertion in a statement on Thursday in Abuja.

Wabba’s reaction followed the Federal Executive Council’s approval on Wednesday to apply the no work, no pay principle during strikes. The Federal Executive Council had earlier approved the implementation of the no work, no pay principle when workers go on strike in the federal public service.

Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, disclosed this on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, while briefing State House Correspondents after FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.

He said the approval was sequel to the adoption of the Draft White Paper on the Report of the Technical Committee on Industrial Relations Matters in the Federal Public Service. Ngige said that the public service in Nigeria was bedeviled by problems and conflict areas; hence governments, over time, set up various committees and brought out circulars in a bid to stem industrial disputes.

The minister said that the technical committee, which was inaugurated on April 27, 2016, did their work and submitted it to the FEC in October 2017. “FEC, in turn, impaneled a committee of 10, which I chaired to do a government Draft White Paper on those contentious areas that the technical committee had looked at.

“These contentious areas are enforcement of section 43 of the Trade Dispute Act Law of the Federation 2004; this is the section that deals with the lockout of workers by their employers without declaring redundancy appropriately.

“Because in some establishments, especially in the private sector, workers are locked out by their employers; so the law there says that if you lock your workers without passing through the normal channel-due process.

“For the period of the lockout, the worker is assumed to be at work and will receive all the remunerations and allowances, benefits accruing to him for the period and that period will also be counted for him as a pensionable period in the computation of his pension. “But when workers go on strike, the principle of no-work-no-pay will also apply because that principle is enshrined in the same section 43 of the Labour Act.’’

According to Ngige, the section says that for the period a worker withdraws his services, government or his employers are not entitled to pay. The minister said that under the section, the period for which the worker was absent would not count as part of his pensionable period in the public service.

However, Wabba disagrees saying the right to go on a strike is a human and trade union right and cannot be wished away by any government policy. “That’s why a strike is legalised by our laws and has been exercised since the colonial era to date.

“The right to strike is what differentiates a worker from a slave; just like the right to strike, right to picketing, the right to work, right to protest and peaceful assembly. “So, the issue of no work, no pay has always existed. It is morally and legally wrong to apply a phrase in a body of law without respecting all other provisions of the same law.

Wabba stressed that there were clear procedures provided by law on how workers can embark on a strike, saying “once this legal requirement is met, the no work, no pay rule cannot apply.”