You Cannot Negotiate For TUC, Osifo Replies Ajearo As N70,000 Controversy Drags On

President of the Trade Union of Nigeria (TUC), Festus Osifo, on Monday, disagreed with the stance of Joe Ajaero, President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), over whose responsibility it is to negotiate salaries and allowances of Nigerian workers with the Federal Government.

Osifo’s response comes as the labour unions bicker over the N70,000 transportation allowance recently approved for workers by President Bola Tinubu.

The TUC President, while appearing as a guest on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Monday, described the N70,000 agreement by the NLC President as an aberration, saying that the TUC was not carried along in the negotiations.

“Listening to Ajaero again today, I really pity the Labour movement and the quality of leaders that have been inflated on the NLC.

“As I listened to Ajaero today, I was wondering if it is the same NLC that produced the likes of Adams Oshiomole, Hassan Sumonu, Ayuba Wabba and so on.

“There is nowhere in ILO regulations that says a trade centre cannot negotiate for its members. It is not there! It is just that if you are going to the ILO, it is tripartite- the labour, government and the employers. And in describing that, it means that the list of the TUC members is joined together with that of the NLC and submitted to the Ministry of Labour, who forwards it to the ILO.

“In that case, the two bodies must come together. We are not contesting the fact that NLC has more affiliates.

“But what we are saying is that you have about 60 affiliates while we have about 40. You cannot! You cannot negotiate for a body that is represented, for a body that has a trade union. “You cannot negotiate for them on their behalf! It is not there anywhere!

“Yes, if we go to negotiations- I sit down, you sit down, and we agree”.

Osifo challenged Ajaero to produce the ILO regulation document that said either of the labour unions could negotiate on behalf of the other.

“He should show me in the ILO Regulations where it says one party is going to negotiate without the other one being there or consulted. He should show me! He should show Nigerians!

“ILO doctrine is that when you have more affiliates, and you are going for one of their events, it is not correct that the most represented will go and negotiate on behalf of the other one when the unions have their own umbrella.

“Let Ajaero send a document to you that proves that! It cannot be found anywhere!

He talked about the JNC (Joint Public Sector Negotiating Council ). I don’t truly think Ajaero has read the JNC constitution. I don’t truly think he knows what the JNC means.

“Yes, you have a Masters in 1990. You cannot use a solution of yesterday to attack today’s problem.

“And that is why in industrial relations, you need to keep updating, retooling and relearning.

“First, the JNC means that when there are issues in the public sector, the JNC looks at it”.

According to Osifo, the meeting where the N70,000 transport allowance was agreed upon was not the Council’s meeting and does not represent a general agreement by members.

“But that meeting that took place was not the Council meeting. The Minister is not a member of the Council. Ajaero is not a member of the Council. The Council even has a quorum and the number of persons that must be seated to form a quorum. But at the end of the day, that meeting was not a JNC meeting. The members of JNC were not there!

“Again, if you see the release that was sent out by those three bodies, you will discover that after the last minimum wage, we got about 33 per cent increment, and how does that work? Because from N30,000, we got N70,000.

What you are supposed to do is that JNC will have to sit down and apply consequential adjustments.

“You know what Ajaero used JNC to do? Ajaero sent JNC a questionnaire and asked them to apply N40,000 each to Nigerian workers. So they took N40,000, which is the difference between N30,00 and N70,000, and applied it across board. That is why the federal workers today are earning abysmally poor.

“But I attacked him! I went to his office and told him that “Ajaero, this is wrong!” What you used JNC to do is fundamentally wrong!”