MoU Review Meeting: NLC Threatens Boycott If Labour Minister Attends

The leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress has threatened to boycott their Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) review meeting with the Federal Government should the Labour Minister, Simon Lalong show up at the meeting.

NLC President Joe Ajaero disclosed this yesterday in Abuja, saying his team would boycott the parley scheduled to hold at the Office of the Chief of Staff to President if Lalong is present.

Ajaero noted that today’s meeting will review progress made by the Federal Government.

It would be recalled that the NLC had Last week, accused Lalong of frustrating the agreement reached with the Federal Government.

Part of the agreement was the resolution of the crisis rocking the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW).

The NLC accused the minister of siding with a faction of the NURTW leadership.

Ajaero said: “Hopefully we may meet tomorrow (today) with the Federal Government all things being equal on their report and template, whether all those issues have been met in the last 30 days.

“If that meeting holds, the minister of Labour will not be present in any meetings with us.

“Any meeting the Federal Government calls today with the Minister of Labour and Employment, that meeting will not hold.

“You have noticed of late that meetings are no longer called by the Minister of Labour because he is not in control.

“Therefore, to depend on him for resolutions on issues about Labour is to waste our time.

“For tomorrow’s (today’s) meeting, the invitation we got was from the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President (Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila) and that is where previous meetings have been held.

“The Minister of Labour has no place in the current industrial relations.”