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Railway Workers Suspend Warning Strike
The three-day warning strike embarked upon by the workers of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has been suspended.
This followed a meeting held on Friday afternoon with the NRC board and another with the management and the Federal Ministry of Transportation in Abuja.
A communique issued at the end of the meeting disclosed that a committee has been set up with immediate effect on the review of the standard condition of service with timeline lasting to the 31st day of January 2022.
The communique was endorsed by the President of the Senior Staff Association (SSA), Railway branch Comr. Aliyu Mainasara and President of the Nigerian Union of Railway Workers (NUR), Comrade Innocent Ajiji, for the unions and the Director of Administration and Human Resources, Dr. (Mrs) Monsurat O. Omotayo, for the management.
The meeting also agreed that the data on deceased workers be collected for processing for immediate payment as every worker is already covered by the group life assurance scheme.
It was also resolved that all the train crews be given insurance cover as the train passengers and the goods in transit while enhanced salary regime has been taken up as a priority by the NRC Board and transportation ministry with a view to securing approval for implementation in the earliest time possible.
The communique added, “It has been agreed that no member of staff shall be victimized as a result of his/her participation in the 3-day industrial action of November 2021;
“by this communique and foregoing resolutions, the 3-day warning strike action is hereby suspended. Therefore, workers are hereby directed to resume work with immediate effect.”
Daily Trust reports that that strike which commenced on Thursday had crippled train operations across the country with the Abuja-Kaduna, Lagos-Ibadan and Itakpe Warri standard gauge train services suspended.
Earlier, Managing Director of the NRC, Engr Fidet Okhiria, had appealed to the workers to return to work, saying their demands were receiving accelerated consideration.
November 19, 2021
Passengers Stranded as Railway Workers Begins Nationwide strike
Passengers are currently stranded in many railway stations across the country as workers begin a three-day warning strike.
Last Friday, railways workers — the Nigeria Union of Railway Workers (NURW) and the Senior Staff Association (SSA) — said they would embark on a three-day warning strike on November 18.
The unions said the warning strike is to protest their “poor welfare”, adding that the strike will send a message to the right quarters on their demands.
“This planned strike is just to send a warning signal to the right quarters to heed our demands for improved welfare and standard condition of service and may be followed with a protracted strike plan,” the unions had said.
On Thursday, the railway workers commenced the action which has paralysed activities in railway stations across the country.
Many Nigerians who visited train stations were left stranded as workers were not available to attend to them.
Aside from the strike, the workers are currently protesting in some railway stations across the country, carrying placards with inscriptions stating their demands.
For instance, at Ebute Metta train station in Lagos, the railway workers took their protest to Lagos-Ibadan rail tracks to state their demands, while chanting solidarity songs.
The workers carried placards with the inscriptions “give us salary regime or we die”, “work for Nigeria railway and die in abject poverty” and “good salaries bring better results, bad salaries kill morale”.
November 18, 2021
Railway workers to embark on 3-days Warning strike
Nigerian Railway workers will be embarking on a 3-day warning strike from Thursday, November 18 to November 20, 2021.
The workers in a letter titled ‘’Notice and Directive to embark on 3- day warning strike nationwide,’’ dated November 12th and addressed to District Chairman/Secretary Nigeria Union of Railway workers and Senior Staff Association, noted that their “agitation for enhanced salary cannot be overemphasized as it is an open secret that the salary regime of the Nigerian Railway workers is the worst and most incomprehensible of all salary structures available to the parastatals under the supervision of the federal ministry of transport”.
The workers stated that the Nigerian government spends billions in building railways which have no dint of impact or improvement in the welfare of the workers in terms of improved remuneration.
The letter read;
“The Honorable Minister of Transport once acceded to the fact that Nigerian Railway workers can easily be identified from the crowd by the way they look and dress which he meant to be strikingly suggestive of the very poor salary paid in the corporation.
“It baffles us so much that the federal government spends billions of dollars on building rail transport infrastructure and transforming the system to a modern railway system but with no dint of impact or improvement in the welfare of the workers in terms of improved remuneration.
“We wonder how long the Honorable Minister of Transport will keep avoiding the railway workers and consciously failing in getting better pay for the impoverished Nigerian Railway workers. We wonder how long we will wait before we get our demand for improved salary approved just like that of National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) where workers’ salaries were recently upped by three hundred percent.”
The Nigeria Union of Railwaymen (NUR) and its sister body, Senior Staff Association for the Statutory Corporation and Government-owned Company (SC GOC), had earlier given the Federal Government and the National Railway Corporation (NRC) a three-week ultimatum to address its welfare concerns to prevent an total industrial action across the country beginning from November 14.
November 13, 2021