The House of Representatives on Wednesday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently transmit the Tripartite Agreement on National Minimum Wage to the National Assembly for legislation, “to avert looming industrial action and its attendant consequences.”
This is just as the lawmakers resolved to investigate the causes of incessant strikes by the organized labour, including the Parliamentary Staff Association of the National Assembly (PASAN) and Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), and to make appropriate recommendations.
The resolutions followed a motion of urgent public importance on “call for legislative intervention to maintain industrial peace in Nigeria” by Sani Zoro (APC, Jigawa).
Zorro, in a lead debate, had raised alarm over frequent threats of industrial action by the organized labour, amidst lack of viable alternative or due process needed for appropriate resolution of industrial disputes.
“We are worried by the reluctance of the Presidency to transmit the Tripartite Agreement on National Minimum Wage to the National Assembly for legislation, to avert looming industrial action and its attendant socio-economic consequences.
“Yesterday, members of the Parliamentary Staff Association of the National Assembly also picketed our two legislative chambers to draw attention to their grievances,” Zoro said.
Contributing to the motion, other lawmakers called on the federal government to display good faith in implementing the different agreements reached between it and ASUU, to checkmate the union’s incessant resort to strikes as the only weapon for negotiating with the government.
