No Work, No Pay, Gov. Oshiomhole Tells Edo State Judiciary Workers

EDO State governor, Adams Oshiomhole, said the government will not use the taxes of workers to pay those who chose to stay at home for months on a strike that is ill-informed.....
Speaking at the 2015/2016 Legal Year of the State Judiciary, the Governor said the law is clear that a worker who embarks on a strike will forfeit his wage.

It will be recalled that workers under the aegis of Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) in the state, had embarked on a seven-month strike action to press home their demand for financial autonomy for the judiciary.


The Governor, who said the state is proud of her judicial arm said: “we in the executive in Edo State have utmost respect for the judicial arm on account of the courage and hard work that you have displayed.”

He, however, noted that “Under Convention 98 of the ILO, it states clearly that you have a right to go on strike, otherwise, it is slave labour but the Trade Union Act is very clear that notwithstanding any reason, if you embark on a strike, you forfeit your wages.


“That is the law, that is the convention and this convention has been domesticated in our labour laws, and I ask you to look at all the provisions taken together in the various Trade Dispute Acts and Amendment Act, you not only forfeit your wages, you forfeit your seniority and you can be dismissed summarily.

“This is the law and the business of the court is to interpret the law without fear even if the litigant is an officer of the court. The court is not a respecter of its own employees, so it must dispense justice even if it doesn’t favour the officers of the High Court and that is what we have taken note to do.


 “I ask my Lord privately when he was pushing for this case and I put it here. At what point does it become acceptable that we resort to illegal tools in pursuance of legal ends? Can you seek legal ends resorting to illegal means? That is resorting to self-help and if other groups resort to self-help, the first casualty will be the judiciary.


Survival of the fittest, everybody will go for cutlass.


“So I ask that JUSUN must run the union within the provisions of the Trade Union Act and within the provisions of the Trade Dispute Acts and if they exceed those boundaries, there are consequences.”