The Federal Government has started the
process of enforcing the ‘no work, no pay’ rule said to be captured in
the Trade Disputes of the Federation.
Once enforced, 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 Labor and Employment,
Dr. Chris Ngige, disclosed this to 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 negotiations. 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.”
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