TUC: NLC sidelined us before nationwide protest — we feel undermined

The Trade Union Congress (TUC) says it feels undermined by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).

The TUC had backed out of the nationwide protest called by the NLC, saying the decision to hit the streets was not a unanimous one.

The TUC’s absence from the protest led to questions on its position regarding the prevailing economic hardship in Nigeria.

Speaking on Thursday during an interview with Arise Television, Festus Usifo, TUC president, said the union is not against protests, adding that he led the protest against the brutalisation of the NLC president in Imo.

“But as an institution, we don’t want people to take us for a ride. Since May 29 when these challenges came up, three things have happened,” he said.

“The first time we wanted to go for a protest in August, the NLC announced the protest without informing us.

“My national executives were furious but I said we should still join the protest and we did. A similar thing happened in September.

“They issued a two-day warning strike without informing us. Since it was the second time such a thing was happening, we did not take part in it.

“That then led to a meeting between the leadership of the TUC and NLC. In that meeting, we established communication and mutual respect.

“We agreed that moving forward, in issues of mutual concern, the leadership of both bodies must first meet, then decide what needs to be done before taking it to our organs for modification.

“The second option was that we would have a joint national executive council (NEC) meeting to take a joint decision.

“The last option was that we would sit together to develop a memorandum of understanding (MoU) so each party understands how our relationship works. We implemented the option of a NEC meeting for the Imo incident.”

Usifo said when the unions jointly issued an ultimatum in February 8, the TUC expected that three to four days before the expiration of the ultimatum, both bodies would meet to review what the federal government had done and then call for a NEC meeting where decisions would be taken.

“But unfortunately, the NLC had a NEC meeting a few days to the ultimatum’s expiration and took a decision. The NLC leadership were asked by the NEC to reach out to the TUC regarding the decision but they disregarded it,” he said.

“The action that was planned was 11 days away so there was no need to have rushed out. What should have been done after that meeting was to reach out to TUC to discuss the dates and modalities.

“When we realised we were being sidelined, we wrote a letter to the NLC to say this has now happened three times.

“The way out of all this is to develop an MoU and develop processes so that one party will not feel undermined. TUC as an institution feels undermined.”