FG fails to increase railway workers’ salaries

According to Nigeria Union of Railway Workers President-General Innocent Ajiji, the union is still waiting for the Federal Government to honour its commitment to raise the pay of its union members by 95%.Information Guide Nigeria

The NUR, a subsidiary of the Nigeria Labour Congress, has vowed to stage a three-day nationwide warning strike from November 18 to November 20, 2021, as The PUNCH had reported the previous year due to poor worker welfare.

Speaking to our correspondent on Monday, the NUR President said that underpaying railroad employees was nothing new, having already resulted in a three-day industrial walkout in 2021 that was put to an end when the union met with the transportation minister and railway management.

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He said, “We resolved to suspend the strike, waiting to see what action the Federal Government will take. Within November and December, they reviewed our salary by 95 per cent, which brought the strike to a halt, and we waited for the implementation, which is yet to be carried out till now.

“And while the former Minister of Transportation was struggling for the implementation, his tenure came to an end, so we decided to allow the new minister to relax and study the terrain before we can again come up with the issue of implementation.”

Also speaking on the reduction of the train’s daily trip from six to two, the NUR president said it was because of the Abuja-Kaduna attack, which has made people to be apprehensive of boarding trains leading to low patronage in the sector. He added that another reason was the high cost of diesel.

Ajiji said, “The number of the train daily trip was reduced because of two reasons. The first one is, the attack on the Abuja -Kaduna train which made commuters become scared of boarding trains because they fear for their lives, so because of this, we started experiencing low patronage in our stations across the country.

“The second reason is the high cost of diesel, which we are all experiencing in the country, it has led to some other means of transport reducing their daily trips and some have stopped working for a while.”

Speaking further, the NUR president added, “We can’t be talking about the Abuja-Kaduna security measure because nothing is happening there for now, but for Lagos, Warri and others, security has picked up, the numbers of the armies, police, and civil defence at stations and trains have increased.”JAMB Result

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