The Federal Government, on Sunday, described a threat by the Joint Health Sector Union to embark on a strike as ridiculous.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, who stated this in an interview with one of our correspondents in Abuja, said the Federal Government would on Tuesday meet with the leadership of JOHESU.
The union, through its President, Josiah Biobelemonye, had given a 15-day ultimatum to the labour minister and other stakeholders on Saturday in Abuja.
The union had decried what it described as the nonchalant attitude of the Federal Government to attend to lingering issues concerning its members in a letter to the minister.
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.
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JOHESU consists of associations of nurses, pharmacists, laboratory scientists and other health workers. If the union makes good its threat, government hospitals in the country will be paralysed.
On Saturday last week, the NMA issued a 21-day strike notice to the Federal Government with effect from Monday, August 30, over its failure to meet the demands of the National Association of Resident Doctors, which commenced its strike on August 2.
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