The Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, and Trade Union Congress, have been called upon to begin a warning 48 hours general strike and mass protest against the current hardship caused by cash crunch, fuel scarcity and hike in the prices of goods and services in the country.
The call was made by the Precision Electrical and Related Equipment Senior Staff Association, PERESSA, on Monday in a statement made available to FrontPage.
While congratulating the Joe Ajaero-led new executive of the NLC, PERESA warned that it should be ready for a moral struggle for the labour movement’s ideological repositioning.
It said that the NLC leadership that had emerged “at this pivotal time in our nation’s history must demonstrate brave leadership and a willingness to fight.”
Stressing the need for urgent action to stem the tide of current hardship in the country, PERESA, in the statement signed by Mr. Rufus Olusesan (National President) and Mr. Dele Ojo (General Secretary), urged the labour movements to display radical leadership and organise the rank-and-file workers and poor masses for resistance against the ongoing privatization in various sectors of the economy as well as numerous anti-labour policies of casualisation, nonpayment of minimum wage.”
The statement reads in part: “We hereby urge the Nigerian Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress to unite and call a warning 48 hour general strike and mass protest against the current hardship caused by cash shortage, fuel scarcity and hike in the prices of petrol, food, transport, housing and other basic necessities of life.
“Furthermore, there is an urgent need for the NLC and the TUC to display radical leadership and organize the rank-and-file workers and poor masses for resistance against the ongoing privatization in various sectors of the economy as well as numerous anti-labour policies of casualization, non-payment of minimum wage and non- remittance of pension which have caused enormous suffering and agony on the working populace.
“We also use this opportunity to urge the labour movement to recommit to its traditional anti-capitalist stance, and reject policies and programmes that entrench wealth inequality – and increases wealth accumulation for the capitalist profiteers – while pushing workers and poor masses further down the abyss of poverty and misery living.”
The group warned that unless labour adopted an anti-capitalist and socialist programme of struggle alongside the building of a mass workers political alternative, it might be impossible to win permanent improvement in the wages and working conditions of average workers let alone rescue Nigeria from the capitalist misrule that it said had held it down for decades.”
