The organised labour union is set for a showdown with the Kaduna State government over the introduction of a fresh verification exercise.
According to them, the exercise will compel civil servants in the state to fill forms indicating if they still want to be members of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) or not.
Reacting to this, the NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, and his TUC counterpart, Bobbai Kaigama, have directed the workers to disregard the order by not filling the form.
He said the new screening exercise was against International Labour Organisation Convention on Rights of Workers, and a deliberate measure to destabilise unionism in the Kaduna State’s public service.
Speaking on behalf of the aggrieved workers, the TUC Chairman in Kaduna State, Shehu Mohammed, stressed that they wanted the government to expunge the portion of the verification form that stated that civil servants should decide whether or not, they want to belong to a labour union in the new state government’s rules of engagement.
According to the workers, the Kaduna State government had issued out a form titled “Special Exercise on Staff Verification”, where it requested all workers under its payroll to either fill a “Yes or No”, for membership of a union.
Reacting to the allegation, Governor Nasir El-Rufai, through his spokesman, Samuel Aruwan, said that the exercise was a continuation of the previous one that commenced in 2015 and not a new one.
He explained that the verification process was necessary to establish a comprehensive data and therefore, could not be considered conclusive until the government was reasonably satisfied that it had eliminated ghosts from its payroll.
Regarding union membership, Aruwan said that “the government respects the right of workers to freedom of association”, but stressed that the state government considered that it was democratic that those who wish to exercise this right or not should indicate in writing.
While government insists that the introduction of the form is not to break the ranks of the NLC or TUC in Kaduna State, the workers have agreed to meet by Wednesday to take a definite stand on their next line of action, as they vowed not to sign the controversial form.
