Bayelsa State deputy governor Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo has expressed concern over the way and manner organised labour have been tackling issues bordering on the welfare of workers in Nigeria in recent times.
Ewhrudjakpo said despite the skyrocketing cost of living in Nigeria occasioned by soaring food and fuel prices and seven months old closure of universities which have made nonsense of the national minimum wage, the performance of labour organisations such as the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) have not been too impressive in terms of protecting the interest of their members, democracy and the national economy.
Ewhrudjakpo, who made this known at the weekend during a courtesy call on him by the national president of the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees (AUPCTRE) Comrade Benjamin Anthony and the Bayelsa chairperson of AUPCTRE, Comrade Ayibalayefa Gabriel and her counterparts from Edo, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, Delta and Cross River states, asserted that organised labour had lost the fervency it was known for in the past when the likes of late Michael Imodu, Ali Ciroma, Chief Ovie Kokori, Chief Wariebi Agamene of NUPENG and others held sway.
He said labour’s silence in the country when most public universities had been shut for upward of seven months was unacceptable, insisting that the labour movement had lost much integrity.
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