Workers of Kwara State Water Corporation, on Tuesday, staged a protest in the state capital, Ilorin, against the non- payment of their salary since July.
The workers were also protesting against the non-remittance of 10 months co-operative deductions (January to December 2015), amounting to about N70 million, outstanding promotion since 2012, non-remittance of already deducted National Housing Fund and union deductions from October 2014 to June 2015, eight months’ outstanding of N3,000 each, in addition to N18,000 minimum wage amounting to N5.4 million
The protesters who gathered under the umbrella of Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees (AUPCTRE), Kwara State Water Corporation branch, blocked the entrance of the agency along state library, in Ilorin, while the protest lasted for several hours.
They carried placards with various such inscriptions as “pay us our salary arrears”; “We are not fools”; “Give us our rights”; “No pay no work”.
Speaking with journalists, AUPCTRE Chairman, Kwara State Water Corporation branch, Comrade Murtala, said the union had written a series of letters to the management and the government but did not yield any positive results.
He said the workers numbering about 600 were forced to resort to protest to press home for their demands having explored all means to let the management see the reasons to meet their demands.
He vowed that the workers would not return to work until their demands were met.
Also the State Secretary of AUPCTRE, Comrade Saliu Sulyman, who came in the middle of the protest to address the workers, told journalists that the management and government were not sensitive to the workers’ sorry plight.
“We have written a series of letters to the management and government without any positive response and nobody is even negotiating with us. Instead the governor went on air to say the state government was not owing anybody,” he said.
Sulyman added that the union had given the state government a 14-day ultimatum which expired on Monday without any response.
He lamented that the non-payment of workers’ salaries had caused untold hardship on workers of the corporation saying, “We have lost six of our workers and some are receiving treatments in the hospital.”
He said many workers walked to work every day because they could no longer afford fares, while some had been sent out of their homes for owing rent.
source for Honeyland News