· Mandates Labour Leaders to Issue Strike Ultimatum
Ekiti State civil servants have demanded that the state government should begin the immediate payment of all financial benefits due to public service workers in the state that have accrued since 2015.
The workers made the demand at a congress meeting of public servants held last Tuesday, 16th June at the Secretariat Complex in Ado Ekiti, the state capital. The congress therefore gave the state’s leadership of organized labour the mandate to issue a 7-day ultimatum to the state government with effect from Wednesday, 17th June 2020 to act decisively on their demands, failure of which the state’s workforce will embark on an indefinite industrial action slated to commence by Wednesday, 24th June, 2020.
Other benefits demanded for immediate payment include allowances that accrued from promotions between 2015 to 2019, just as leave Bonuses for the years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 have remained paid.
The congress also noted that the deliberate delay in the implementation of the new national minimum wage of N30,000.00 and the consequential adjustment to all workers is an economic bondage and high level of insensitivity to workers by the state government.
The workers criticized the state government for the payment of 50% of salaries, a situation they described as economic enslavement which they said was witnessed under Fayemi’s first term as a governor, adding that in the current dispensation, pensioners are now living in penury, abject poverty and destitution as they have been completely abandoned by the state government.
To meet their demands, the workers asked Governor Fayemi to reduce his security vote to enable his government attend to sensitive and important issues of state.
