*Demand Keyamo leads FG’s negotiation team
Onyebuchi Ezigbo
Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) has threaten to embark on nationwide industrial action on September 13 if Federal Government fails to meet its demands.
It said that it was demanding for the replacement of Senator Chris Ngige on the negotiating team, saying that it has noticed an element of bias in the handling of negotiations.
The union said that being a medical doctor, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, was an interested party and as such could not be trusted to deliver an unbiased judgement.
It alleged that while the FG had successfully resolved the case involving the medical doctors, it had been delaying in finding solutions for the demands of the other health workers.
Addressing representatives of the various allies and chapters of JOHESU, the National Chairman, Comrade Bio Joy Josiah, said that the workers had endured a lot and will no longer sit back and allow the continued neglect.
He listed some of the greviances to include, non payment of outstanding welfare packages, and review of implementation of covid-19 special inducement and hazard allowance
“It becomes imperative to inform you that if the federal government does not meet these demands by midnight of September 13, 2020, JOHESU will have no choice than to commence a nationwide 7-day warning strike of health workers in federal institutions.
“We had withheld action on embarking on industrial action despite provocative stance of federal government due to the rampaging novel virus in the globe,” he said.
He said the reason the Union had held back its industrial action was because of consideration of the interest and wellbeing of citizens of the country.
He however said that the patience of the health workers had been overstretched and that they have decided to take their destiny in their hands and to show that they can go without salaries in order to protest the neglect and insensitivity of federal government to their demands.
Detail later….
