CHRIS NGIGE
The Federal Government has assured the organised labour unions of mutual industrial relations and robust welfare package for workers in the country.
It also said it was working towards resolving conflicts with the workers in order to ensure industrial harmony.
Chairman, Council of the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council and Permanent Secretary, Service Welfare Office, Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Didi Walson-Jack stated this in Yenegoa, the Bayelsa State during the 2017 annual meeting of the council.
This was contained in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja by the Assistant Director, Media Relations, OHoSCSF, Mohammed Manga.
Walson-Jack said that this year’s meeting with the theme, “Emerging Employer-Employee Relations Management Strategies for Addressing Potential Conflicts in the Public Sector”, was timely and appropriate, noting that President Muhammadu Buhari was very concerned about most of the issues that had caused conflict with the workers.
This, she said was why the new Service Welfare Office with a Permanent Secretary as the head was created in the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation to attend to all Labour matters.
Henceforth, Walson-Jack, said, “better attention would be given to all these issues and bone of contention would be nipped in the bud before they escalate into conflicts.”
According to her, some of the strategies adopted to improve the relationship between government and labour include regular interaction with the union leaders representing the different group of workers and improved lines of communication between labour and government generally.
Over the years, she said the welfare of civil servants had been fairly uncoordinated and little attention paid to occupational health and safe work environment issues, which she attributed to the lack of an institutional mechanism for the management of the welfare of workers across the service.
“The prevailing economic situation presented a critical need to improve the benefits and welfare packages of civil servants in order to boost their morale, cushion the effect of the economic recession and improve productivity,” she stated.
The President of Nigeria Labour Congress, Ayuba Wabba and his Trade
Union Congress counterpart, Bobboi Kaigama reiterated their stance on
minimum wage renewal for workers across the country.
