Labour unions in Osun State have agreed to boycott the activities to mark the 2015 May Day due to the non-payment of five months’ salaries by the state government.
The factional Chairman of the Trade Union Congress, Francis Adetunji, said in Osogbo, the state capital, that the agreement was reached by labour leaders for workers to stay away from the May Day celebration which holds on May 1 every year.
Adetunji said, “No May Day celebration this year. That is the decision of the entire workers in Osun State. We cannot be celebrating when workers have not been paid a dime since the beginning of the year.
“The last salary we were paid was part-payment of November salary. Since then, we have not collected any salary. We will not celebrate the May Day because our salaries are not paid.”
The TUC factional chairman also debunked the claim in some quarters that the refusal of Governor Rauf Aregbesola to approve the budget proposal for the Workers’ Day celebration prompted his call on workers to go on the three-day warning strike last week.
He said, “There was nothing like that. We did not present any budget before the government concerning Workers’ Day.
The only request we want to make to the governor is that he should look for money by all means and pay workers.
“We are hungry. I am very serious, our workers are very hungry and only those who are close to workers will know the severity of this hunger.”
He said that the governor invited labour leaders to a meeting which was supposed to have held on Monday but labour leaders postponed the meeting because of the preparations for the election of state officials of the Nigeria Labour Congress coming up on Thursday April 23.
Adetunji scored Aregbesola administration high in infrastructural development but said the governor should do something urgently to redeem his image among the workers because of the irregular payment of workers’ salaries which according to him started since after the August 2014 governorship election.
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