NYSC workers threaten indefinite strike

WORKERS of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) across the country have issued a 21-day ultimatum to the management, within which to effect improvement in their conditions of service or, in the alternative, down tool.

This was part of the agreement reached at the just-concluded meeting of the NYSC national coordinating committee of the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service, Technical and Recreational Services Employees (AUPCTRE) with management on the issue.

A communiqué issued at the end of the meeting, which was jointly signed by Mr Olufemi Wahab and Mr Isaac Maikur, chairman and secretary, respectively and made available to newsmen in Ibadan, Oyo State, on Sunday, lamented that the NYSC’s Director-General, Brigadier-General Nnamdi Okorie-Affia, was yet to respond to series of letters from the union through which they catalogued their grievances, particularly as regard the welfare of workers.

Amongst their grievances, according to the communiqué, included subsisting NYSC conditions of service, which they alleged were defective; continued non-payment of 28 days in lieu of hotel accommodation for officers on transfer; short payments of transfer claims of some officers; slashing to 50 per cent off passing out allowance to staff during the last exercise without any information, as well as demand for an upward review of camp allowance for subsequent orientation programmes.

The communique, however, urged the Director-General and management of the NYSC scheme to “see the union as a stakeholder and not an enemy, in order to ensure good, industrial and harmonious relationship.”wp_posts