The President Muhammadu Buhari administration has approved the implementation of the no work, no pay principle when workers in the federal civil service go on strike.
This decision was made at the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting on Wednesday, 17 October, 2018.
Nigeria’s Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, made it known while briefing newsmen after the meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Ngige said that the public service in Nigeria was bedeviled by problems and conflict areas; hence governments, over time, set up various committees and brought out circulars in a bid to stem industrial disputes.
He said, “FEC in turn impaneled a committee of 10, which I chaired to do a government Draft White Paper on those contentious areas that the technical committee had looked at.
"These contentious areas are enforcement of section 43 of the Trade Dispute Act Law of the Federation 2004; this is the section that deals with lockout of workers by their employers without declaring redundancy appropriately.
"Because in some establishments, especially in the private sector, workers are locked out by their employers; so the law there says that if you lock your workers without passing through the normal channel-due process.
"For the period of the lock out, the worker is assumed to be at work and will receive all the remunerations and allowances, benefits accruing to him for the period and that period will also be counted for him as a pensionable period in the computation of his pension.
"But when workers go on strike, the principle of no-work-no-pay will also apply because that principle is enshrined in the same section 43 of the Labour Act.
According to Ngige, the section says that for the period a worker withdraws his services, government or his employers are not entitled to pay.
The minister said that under the section, the period for which the worker was absent would not count as part of his pensionable period in the public service.
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