The Federal Government has concluded plan to enforce ‘no work, no pay’.
This is said to be captured in the Trade Disputes of the Federation.
Once the law becomes active, any worker who embarks on industrial
action will lose his or her pay for that period, while the period of the
strike will not be pensionable.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chief Chris Ngige, made this
disclosure while speaking with State House correspondents at the end of
the weekly meeting of the Federal Executive Council, presided over by
President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said the decision formed part of the report of a technical committee established on April 27, 2016.
He said, “First and foremost, the report emphasised the need to implement the law on ‘no work, no pay.’
“The ‘no work, no pay’ is not a rule, neither is it a policy. It is a law captured on Trade Disputes Act of Federation.
“Section 43 to be precise says that workers have a right to disengage
from an employer if there is a break down in discussions or
negotiation. But for the period that the worker does so, the employer
should not pay and those periods are to be counted as non-pensionable
times in the period of work.
“So council today re-emphasised that that law is still in force and
that it should be brought to the knowledge of workers in the public and
private sector, especially those in the public sector.
“We have to do that because of the spate of industrial crisis we have
suffered in the last two months, when we had plethora of strikes all
over the place.
“So council has said this should be reemphasised to workers so that
they will know. Meanwhile for the strike embarked upon the last time, we
will see what we can do about that because there is a law in place.”
Ngige said the council also looked at another recommendation in terms of people who are permanently doing union activities.
“It was agreed that my ministry should continue with our work in
terms of fishing out the unions that don’t have constitutions that
prescribe time limit for their elected officers.
“Such unions should be made to comply with the law, so that people
can be elected they serve out their term and other people will take
their place. That is democracy at work,” he said.