By Demola Akinyemi, Ilorin.

Worried by the ongoing strike of members of Nigeria Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), the Director General of Micheal Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies, Comrade Issa Aremu, has frowned at the ongoing loss of lives of Nigerians caused by the strike and therefore called for an urgent reform of the industrial relations system in the country’s health sector for sustainable peace and service delivery.

Though he said that non payment of the dues and allowances of Doctors is a wage theft he also described the strike leading to loss of lives as unacceptable.

He said that it was time all parties suspended  the existing unhelpful actions and returned to negotiations in the health sector.

Comrade Issa Aremu,  said this on Monday while speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2021 Training on Advocacy and Communication for Women’s Cooperatives & Economic Empowerment Collectives (WEECs) .

The labour expert said it was time  stakeholders in the health sector played by what he called  “the knowledge based rules of collective bargaining, social dialogue, mediation and conciliation to prevent incessant work stoppages in hospitals with attendant costs to lives.”

While condemning what he called “delayed and non payment of workers” in the health sector, Issa Aremu also flayed the prevalence of indefinite strikes in the sector which he said had led to avoidable loss of lives.

He said,“I have also been saying it that  delayed payment of salaries of medical personnel such as doctors and nurses and teachers amounted to wage theft. But so also  indiscriminate indefinite strike under a  Covid: 19 amounts to willful unacceptable Industrial suicide.

“A strike is not a war certainly not a mutually assured destructive war as we are witnessing in Nigeria. Strike is ‘a temporary stoppage of work by a group of employees in order to express a grievance or enforce a demand’ after which the workers would return to the same jobs with the same terms.”

Comrade Aremu said MINILS was  set to bridge the existing abysmal knowledge gap about labour market issues with respect to trade  unionism, conflict resolution, strikes and strike management in critical sectors like education and health sectors. 

Declaring the workshop open,  the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr. Festus Keyamo, SAN, said arrangement had been concluded  to train newly elected trade union leaders at Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS) for certification in effective discharge of their responsibility with respect to representation of members and promotion of Industrial harmony.

The minister said with the new management,  the Institute was set to become the  think tank for labour market issues.

He commended President Muhammadu Buhari for appointing Comrade Aremu as the first unionist Director General of the Institute.

The program was organized by the Labour Institute in partnership with development Research and Projects Centre (DRPC). 

The workshop attracted 35 participants drawn from 35 women leaders from as many as hundreds of cooperative societies; associations of market women and women traders; trade unions, associations of producers; and women’s groups running micro, small and medium enterprises in the country.