Kaduna health workers ignore sack threat, begin warning strike

Health Workers in Kaduna State have begun a sevenday warning strike despite a warning by the state government that it would view absence from duty as forfeiture of employment. The Congress of Health Workers Unions and Associations had within the week issued an ultimatum to the government to refund the 25 percent cuts from their April and May salaries and provide them Personal Protective Equipment, warning of a strike if their demands were not met.

The government had introduced a policy of 25 percent deduction from the salaries of all civil servants and 50 percent deduction from political office holders to help provide palliatives for the less privileged affected by the lockdown order due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

A statement issued by Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s Special Adviser on Media and Communication, Muyiwa Adekeye on Friday said it would not bend to blackmail and instructed that every health worker willing to work was required to sign the register at the Ministry of Health and the health institutions to which they were deployed.

However, following a joint meeting to assess the government’s response, the union in a communiqué stated that the sevenday warning strike had commenced on Friday, stressing that the action was not intended to blackmail the government.

The communiqué stated that the deduction of 25 percent of salaries from about 11, 000 healthcare workers in the midst of COVID I9 pandemic was a violation of Section 5 of the Labour Act.

It noted that the state government had paid between N150,000 and N450,000 as occupational safety incentives to about 300 selected healthcare workers and non healthcare workers (HCWs) working as staff or volunteers in the Infectious Disease and Control Centre and isolation centre or serving in some of the Covid- 19 pillars.

The communiqué stated that all health workers are exposed to varying degrees of risk of infectious diseases such as Covid19, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, Lassa fever, Ebola fever, adding that there were no adequate PPEs, as patients buy their own gloves.