WE CALL FOR REMITTANCE OF SIXTY MONTHS’ PENSIONS DEDUCTIONS OF OGUN STATE WORKERS
WE CALL FOR REMITTANCE OF SIXTY MONTHS’ PENSIONS DEDUCTIONS OF OGUN STATE WORKERS
NLC and TUC, Ogun State must go beyond issuing statements and mobilize workers for struggle
We of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), Ogun State chapter, join the Ogun State chapter of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to call on the Ogun State government to accede to the demands of Ogun State workers by remitting about sixty months’ pensions deductions of their salaries. We hold that the revelation of the unremitted pensions’ deductions by the NLC Ogun State punctures the boastful claims of the APC-led Ogun State government that it is completely clean of unremitted deductions of workers’ pensions and unpaid salaries.
We also welcome the solidarity that the NLC in Ogun State has given to the struggle of workers in Tai Solarin College of Education, Omu-Ijebu, Ogun State against the purported proscription of their staff unions by the government. We reiterate our view that the proscription of the staff unions constitutes an attack on the democratic rights of workers in the institution and further shows that the current Ibikunle Amosun’s APC-led Ogun State government is anti-worker and anti-poor.
We call on the NLC in Ogun State not to limit their defence for workers’ rights in the state to mere issuance of press statements but undertake mass mobilization of workers for a relentless mass struggle for their entitlements.
We also decry the failure of the Amosun regime to release subventions to educational institutions for more than a year, as contended by the Nigerian Labour Congress in Ogun State. We call for a wider mobilization of education workers, students and the entire working masses in Ogun State to bring pressure to bear on the state government to fund the educational institutions in the state and not to turn them into ghost lands, which they are almost turning into.
We submit that the anti-worker features of the Ibikunle Amosun’s APC-led state government cannot be separated from the neo-liberal underpinnings of the policies of the government. This is equally responsible for the failure to fund education among other things. The fact is that the APC, given its neo-liberal policies, has not met the yearnings of ordinary workers for their democratic rights, properly-funded education and better welfare conditions. We call on all the genuine forces within the broader labour movement to arise to the task of building a genuine mass working people’s political alternative to all the anti-poor ruling class parties.