Oyo State civil servants returned to their desks on Monday, August 7, 2023 having called off a week-long strike called by the state’s chapters of organised labour.
The civil servants shunned work since July 31 to protest the non-payment of salary deductions, leave bonuses and also to demand a review of pension allowances.
The strike, called by the NLC, the Trade Union Congress, the Nigeria Union of Pensioners and the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, paralysed government activities during the period.
The workers demanded that Gov. Seyi Makinde must address them personally and not through proxies on all contentious issues before they would call of the strike. Consequently, Gov. Makinde addressed the aggrieved workers at the entrance of the civil service secretariat on Monday.
He appealed to the workers to return to work and assured that their demands would be looked into in due course.
Makinde noted that the one-week protest had impacted the state’s Internally Generated Revenue negatively, and pledged that quarterly meetings would be held with union leaders to address workers’ demands.
In his remarks, NLC chairman in Oyo State, Mr Kayode Martins, said that the unions decided to end the protest because the governor had yielded to some of their demands.
“Also, the governor just promised to give speedy attention to other demands,’’ he noted.