TUC, NLC issue 14-day ultimatum over health workers’ pay, threaten nationwide strike

Labour leaders

The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, and the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, on Friday issued a final 14-day ultimatum to the Federal Ministry of Health and relevant government agencies to immediately implement the long-delayed adjustment of the Consolidated Health Salary Structure, CONHESS, warning that failure to comply will trigger a nationwide industrial action. In a joint press statement, signed on behalf of Nigerian workers, Comrade General NA Toro, Secretary General of the TUC, and Comrade Benson Upah, Acting General Secretary of the NLC, the two labour centres condemned what they described as the “persistent, deliberate, and provocative refusal” of the government to implement the report of the Technical Committee on CONHESS, submitted since 2021 and chaired by the Chairman of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission.

This continued delay is no longer an administrative lapse; it is a conscious act of injustice, bad faith, and institutional disrespect to health workers and organised labour,” the unions said.

They lamented that five years after the submission of the report, the Federal Government has chosen to ignore it, subjecting health workers to hardship, frustration, and inequality.

The labour centres described as unacceptable what they called the selective implementation of salary policies within the health sector, noting that while the government promptly implemented the adjustment of the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure, CONMESS, with effect from January 2, 2014, it has willfully refused to do the same for CONHESS.

This selective justice and discriminatory application of policy within the same sector expose the insincerity of the government’s commitment to fairness, equity, and industrial harmony,” the statement read.“According to the unions, repeated engagements and restraint by labour leadership in the interest of industrial peace have been met with what they termed arrogant silence from the Ministry of Health.

Instead of action, the ministry has continued to offer excuses. This attitude amounts to a gross abuse of trust and a direct challenge to organised labour,” they said.