Less than two months to the September 22 governorship election in Osun State, scores of labour unions in the state, under the auspices of Osun State Joint Public Service Negotiating Council, has issued a 21-day ultimatum to the government to settle backlog of salaries and pensions.
The unions threatened to embark on an industrial action should the government fail to meet their demands. This development has unsettled the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), which is presently struggling to convince disgruntled electorate on its alleged failed policies and style of governance.
The Governor Rauf Aregbesola-led administration, since the tail end of his first term in office, has been embroiled in serious labour crisis due to irregular payment of salaries, and later modulated salary scheme, also known as “half salary”.
Although, the government has come up with a detailed analysis of what is being termed “half salary”, claiming that only small fraction of the workforce falls under the modulated scheme, the mindset of many people in the state has not been changed by this clarification, creating serious resentment against the government.
Meanwhile, in the communique issued and sent to Governor Aregbesola on Wednesday, the attention of the Governor was drawn to the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, between the Osun state Government and the leadership of the labour unions, signed on Saturday, December 30, 2017, which they alleged the government has failed to honour.
They lamented the terrible condition of their members, who they said, were plagued with hardship, sickness and avoidable death, due to the “insensitivity” of the Government to attend to the abysmal welfare of the workers.
According to the labour unions, “We have resolved that the July 2018 and subsequent salaries and pensions should be paid in full, which include payment of the backlog of arrears of salaries and pension from September 2015.
“Remittance of backlog of contributory pension of workers to the pension fund administrator (PFA) be effected immediately, also, payment of gratuities to all categories of pensioners and those who retired under contributory pension be effected immediately, and lastly, the payment of 2016 leave bonus should be paid to all categories of workers.”