The politics of labour strike action in Taraba
Again, this is not even about the legendary N18,000 minimum being currently debated in national circle. Nobody is even speaking of that one yet because the matter is still undergoing some work at the federal level. So what is this all about? I have an answer: it is all politics. The labour leaders are just […]
Again, this is not even about the legendary N18,000 minimum being currently debated in national circle. Nobody is even speaking of that one yet because the matter is still undergoing some work at the federal level. So what is this all about? I have an answer: it is all politics. The labour leaders are just trying to score a point by intimidating their members and creating tensions. You know, this is an election year!
And after an assessment of the various issues involved in the matter, one is clearly left in a lurch as regards the rationale of the whole drama. For “drama” it is. First Governor Danbaba Danfulani Suntai’s administration pays the highest salary to workers this part of the country. The minimum wage in this backwater state is about N8, 800 (eight thousand, eight hundred naira). It even looks better than that of the federal government which is about N7, 000. The explanation for that is simple: the monthly package also has part of the worker’s other benefit included in it. That way, he can go home with something that most workers across the country do not get; can’t get for now actually. Then, unlike many states in the country, the disparity between a permanent secretary and a director is not that much in Taraba.
While a Permsecs gets something close to N390,000 each month, the director goes home with something in the neighbourhood of N120,000 monthly. In some states, that is unthinkable. We hear of states where directors get as low as N60,000 ( sixty thousand).
Let me not bore you with statistics which anyone can check out. The hard fact is that Suntai pays one of the best salaries in the country today. The labour leaders know this well. Beyond this, Suntai is the master of prompt payment. As an aide, I know better than to take a memo requesting for money from him at the end of the month. He hardly listens to anyone or anything that time of the month. His one line response to any request is: “let me pay the salaries first, and then I will see clearly”. He thus does not play games where workers salaries and other entitlements are concerned. He once told me that he can’t ever owe any worker his salary. That it would be sinful. Even now with many of the workers striking, Suntai has ordered that any worker who shows up for work should be paid. So January salaries have been paid to a few good workers who believed that the labour leaders are on to something else and not their welfare. I mean, while many workers are suffering with their kids out of school, the labour leaders do not care. Their children are in high-level private schools!
Suntai started the workers revolution earlier on in his administration. When he came, he met an astounding back log of pensions and gratuity owed the workers by the previous administration. Many poor pensioners were dying and other were infirmed. The whole state was littered by people who had served the state practically in vain. Suntai changed that immediately. He spent over N3 billion to offset that situation. Life suddenly flowed back into the state and everyone was happy. Currently, he is strategising on how he would offset some pension and gratuity occasioned by the recent disengagements from the civil service.
He did something else when he came into office that is worth mentioning. The regime before his did not find it necessary to upgrade the working conditions of civil servants. There was a disdain and contempt for people who have served the state all their lives. Thugs were the major beneficiaries of the regime as they rode in the shinning cars across the state. Wizened and over-worked permanent secretaries just looked on. Some of them had no cars attached to their offices and the furniture they used where from hell. The worker-friendly Suntai changed that. He got them befitting cars, after working on their remunerations. Then he furnished their offices. This was across board.
In Taraba state, there is a work force of 16,500 civil servants. Already the lean purse of the state is getting leaner as a result of the payment of salaries and other entitlements. And if government adds even a penny to what it is paying right now, it is simple arithmetic that the state will be expending close to N1.8 billion on salaries alone. Commonsense shows that this would be counter-productive for a state that largely depends on subvention from federal coffers. Now, if Taraba, which gets one of the least subventions from the federal purse, goes on to “waste” all that on worker’s salaries, what about its obligation to the other people in the state who don’t draw a salary.
Let’s take the argument higher. Taraba has a population of close to three million. Now the 16,500 workers with their dependants cannot be even a quarter of this population. The other folks also deserve government commitment in road constructions, provision of water, drugs in hospitals, schools and security among many other things. So if Suntai uses up everything we get from the federal government on salary, who takes care of the other people and their needs? Are labour leaders suggesting that the governor should forget developing the state the way he is doing and concentrate on only paying salaries? See why this current odyssey is one in the wilderness?
Bello is media aide to Gov. Suntai