The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, on Wednesday disclosed that the federal government has started the process of instituting ‘no work, no pay’ rule as captured in the Trade Disputes of the Federation.
The rule would allow the federal government to withhold the remuneration and accruable pension of any worker who embarks on a strike.
He made this disclosure in Abuja to State House correspondents after the conclusion of the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting which was presided over by the president.
The rule, a recommendation in a report from April 27, 2016, he said has become necessary in the face of the spate of industrial actions the nation witnessed in the last few months.
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 a 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.”
