22 STATES OWING WORKERS' SALARIES

Secretary General of the National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN), Comrade Issa Aremu, has expressed concern over non payment of workers salaries by many state governors.

Speaking with newsmen in Kaduna at the NUTGTWN meeting, Aremu described the development as a wage theft, wage robbery and economic crime.
Aremu who is the Vice President of the Nigeria Labour Congress ( NLC) said for about three months now, 22 state governors are delaying or refusing to pay salaries but paid the delegates during the just concluded primary elections across the states.
“We see that delay in payment of salaries as wage theft, wage robbery. It is actually an economic crime because Nigeria labour law says thou shall pay the worker as at when due. In fact by 22nd of every month you must have pay the workers fully.
“We never heard of any delegate being owed a single penny during the primary elections, but they cannot get money to pay the workers. In fact, some of the delegates even bought new cars and properties after the primaries because they money they got in just few days is much more than what workers earn in many months. The governors should go to the place they got they money to pay delegates and settle the workers’ salaries ,” he said.
He also said the NUTGTWN has succeeded in negotiating a 15% increase in wages for its members, making it a 35% increase in the last four years.
“This shows that the process of collecting bargaining is working in the private sector and we will like to recommend this process for the public sector because most of their crisis is on the increase of wages and salaries which has been causing endless strikes and unfavourable industrial actions,” he added.