The Federal Government, on Sunday, revealed that it is worried about the recent threats of strikes in the health sector.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said it is ridiculous that the Joint Health Sector Union, JOHESU are planning to embark on a strike.
He said the Federal Government are to meet on Tuesday with the leadership of JOHESU.
The minister said the government are worried that the strikes could grind activities in the health sector to a halt.
The minister said, “Why will the government not worry? They have also taken the issue of ultimatum to a ridiculous level. Some of the issues they raised are issues that are already being addressed.
“One of the rules of engagement and the ILO principle of negotiation is that when you are on a negotiating table, you don’t issue strike notices. It becomes intimidation to the other party.
“Anyway, before they issued this, we had proposed to meet with them on Tuesday. I will be surprised if they have not received our letter, because I issued instructions for them to meet us at the Presidential Committee on Salaries and Wages on Tuesday.
“We shall be discussing their old demands because if you look at their strike threat, there are certain things that are no issues for me, which I have never conciliated before.
“Issues like consultancy for pharmacists and nurses, nobody has brought that to my table as a point of dispute. Issues of dieticians and their entry scale, I have never discussed with them before.
“These are new and if they are new, they will discuss it with their employer first and when they fail to reach an agreement, they can come to me. I am not their employer; their employer is the Ministry of Health.”
JOHESU through its President, Josiah Biobelemonye said that they had given a 15-day ultimatum to the labour minister and other stakeholders on Saturday in Abuja.
The union complained of the nonchalant attitude of the Federal Government to attend to lingering issues.
Some of the issues, according to JOHESU, are the adjustment of the Consolidated Health Salary Structure as was done with the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure since 2014; payment of withheld April and May 2018 salaries of members and withheld salaries in the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri; the Jos University Teaching Hospital; and the Lagos University Teaching Hospital; and the review of the defective implementation of COVID-19 Special Inducement and Hazard Allowance.
Others are the implementation of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria’s alternative dispute resolution, consent judgment and other court judgments, increase in the retirement age from 60 to 65 years for health workers and 70 years for consultant health professionals.
JOHESU consists of associations of nurses, pharmacists, laboratory scientists and other health workers.
The union’s strike threat follows an earlier 21-day strike notice issued by the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, over its failure to meet the demands of the National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, which commenced its strike on August 2.
He, however, said some of the issues raised by both the NMA and JOHESU were already being discussed.
He added that it was against one of the principles of the International Labour Organisation to issue strike notice on issues that were already being discussed.
He said the threats of strikes is equivalent to intimidating the other party.
, “Why will the government not worry? They have also taken the issue of ultimatum to a ridiculous level. Some of the issues they raised are issues that are already being addressed.
“One of the rules of engagement and the ILO principle of negotiation is that when you are on a negotiating table, you don’t issue strike notices. It becomes intimidation to the other party.
“Anyway, before they issued this, we had proposed to meet with them on Tuesday. I will be surprised if they have not received our letter, because I issued instructions for them to meet us at the Presidential Committee on Salaries and Wages on Tuesday.
“We shall be discussing their old demands because if you look at their strike threat, there are certain things that are no issues for me, which I have never conciliated before.
“Issues like consultancy for pharmacists and nurses, nobody has brought that to my table as a point of dispute. Issues of dieticians and their entry scale, I have never discussed with them before.
“These are new and if they are new, they will discuss it with their employer first and when they fail to reach an agreement, they can come to me. I am not their employer; their employer is the Ministry of Health.” The minister explained.
He said the government decided to separate the meetings with NMA and JOHESU because previous collective discussions were not productive.
Ngige said, “The meeting with the NMA will come later, a day or two after that of JOHESU. We have decided to separate them because previous negotiations or collective bargaining meetings with them have not yielded anything. We have met like four times at the State House.
“So, we will take the sector by sector as allowed by the Negotiating Act. They are not doing the same work. They belong to different categories of workers.
“If any category of workers tells you they don’t want to negotiate with others, you grant their request. That is what we are doing.
“Maybe we will fast-track our talks on hazard allowance so that they won’t keep saying it is the government that is drawing them back, whereas their inability to agree collectiv
