NEMA asks workers to end strike
The management of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has called on its staff to suspend their planned strike action as efforts are being made to improve workers’ welfare.
A statement by NEMA Head Media and Public Relations, Sani Datti said the management was shocked to discover that its offices were shut yesterday by the staff union without any prior notice.
Reasons for the union’s action were later discovered to have arisen from issues that were already being addressed, the statement said.
Datti said the management has made efforts to resolve issues of outstanding claims inherited from the past administration and has constituted a committee that has been verifying staff claims and payment process which has commenced for those cleared.
“For instance, the Group Life Insurance for the staff has already been approved. This is beside the personal accident insurance that is also being worked out to cover the staff in the course of their duties.
“It should be noted that current management initiated the process for a new condition of service The Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) has urged the federal and state judiciaries to ensure improved welfare for its members. This followed the recent signing into law of a bill which grants financial autonomy to states’ houses of assembly and states’ judiciary.
JUSUN’s National President, Marwan Mustapha Adamu, who made the call yesterday, said the signing came as a victory for the union’s years of struggle to liberate the judiciary from the shackles of under-funding, poor budgetary allocation and execution.
He said it was in view of this situation where the “Nation was left with a deprived judiciary that must go cap in hand to the for the staff which the Chairman of NEMA Governing Council has given consent and even set up an Establishment Committee which is expected to come up with relevant recommendations.
“The committee has sat three times and received necessary briefings and would soon forward its report for consideration and approval by the council,” the statement said.
The management reiterated its commitment to staff welfare while calling on the union to embrace dialogue rather than strike action to resolve the issues. executive” for survival that the union went to court in 2013 to enforce the provisions of the Constitution in Sections 81(3); 121(3) and 162(9) on the funding of the judiciary.
Adamu said the judgment of the Federal High Court in Abuja in the suit on January 12, 2014 made several orders including one abolishing “piecemeal payments/allocations of funds through states’ ministries of finance to the states’ judiciary”.
“Today, we feel vindicated that President Buhari, the National Assembly, the state legislatures and all other stakeholders who contributed to the actualization of the new legal provision finally took this path towards making the nation’s judiciary great again,” he said.