JOINT ACTION FRONT (JAF)
Declares Support for
THE STRIKE OF
LAGOS MEDICAL DOCTORS
· Governor
Fashola Must Meet Lagos Doctors’ Demands or Resign!
· Nigerian
Working people, Women, Traders, Professionals, Transporters, Students,
Unemployed, etc: Unite to Save Public Healthcare Now!!
WHY
LAGOS DOCTORS ARE ON STRIKE?
Lagos Medical Doctors are on Strike
because the Lagos State Government failed to implement Collective Agreements
reached with them in April 2011 on the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure
(CONMESS). The wage and welfare issue in the disputes bothers on violation by
the Lagos State Government of the principles of Collective Bargaining and the
rule of law.
Lagosians, Nigerians and
the international public should know that the ongoing strike, which first
commenced as a warning strike on April 11 – 13, 2012, became inevitable following
Lagos Government’s refusal to heed the numerous appeals by the medical doctors
in the past 13 months for the full implementation of the CONMESS Agreement.
The CONMESS was signed into law via the Federal Government Circular
SWC/S/04/S.410/220 of 29th September 2009 to serve as
a universal salary scale and minimum reference standard of remuneration for all
doctors in Nigeria regardless of location or employer. Like every other
profession, Conditions of service of workers in the health sector are regulated
by International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions, which employers as a
party in Collective Bargaining are bound to respect.
THE
FACTS OF THE ISSUE
i. The demotion of ALL doctors to
grade steps 1 and 2 of their various levels and Demoting the entry level for
specialists from GL 15 step 4 to GL 15 step 1. The demotion which, not only
undermine the seniority status and income due to different ranks of doctors,
but also is contrary to the Lagos State Civil Service rules, the agreement on
CONMESS and rules and regulations governing wage adjustment in labour matters.
ii. Reneging
on the payment of teaching allowance to GL 10 (House officers) and GL 12
(Medical Officers and Registrars). There is a circular to the effect that these
two categories of doctors are entitled to teaching allowance. Moreso, it should
be stated that House officers/Medical officers teach, contrary to the
falsehoods and misinformation being perpetrated by Lagos State officials.
iii. Selective
implementation of CONMESS as it relates to the Entry level of Medical
Officers and Registrars on GL 12 step 1 instead of GL 12 step 2. This divisive
plot put some of the medical officers in Lagos Government employment at a
disadvantage to their professional counterparts where CONMESS is fully
implemented.
iv. Failure
to review its imposition on higher taxes on wages. The deliberate tax policy is
to short-change the Doctors and to ensure that they do not enjoy the full
compliments of their wage and welfare benefits as contained in the Agreement on
CONMESS.
Rather than respond to
these legitimate demands, the Lagos State Government has embarked on executive
lawlessness and brutality against the doctors, thereby using all known
illegality to justify its illegal sack of the doctors and the ejection order
from Government quarters.
What Lagosians,
Nigerians and the international public should know is that “in a labour
dispute, a party cannot decide on what is legal or illegal. You cannot be a
judge in your own case. Illegality of a Strike cannot be decided by an Employer,
but by an independent arbiter (the Court) that both parties must have
confidence in.
Specifically, the section 628
of decisions and principle of freedom of association committee of the governing
body of the International Labour Organization (ILO).states as follows:
“Responsibility for declaring a strike illegal should not lie with the
government but with an independent body which has the confidence of the parties
involved.”
Therefore, the purported
sack and ejection of the doctors is an exercise in futility that cannot stand
the test of law and time.
THIS GOVERNMENT IS
IRRESPONSIBLE, IT SHOULD HONOUR COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS REACHED WITH THE DOCTORS!
Lagosians and Nigerians
must be reminded that the Lagos Doctors went on a 14-weeks strike in August –
November 2010 and it was suspended only when the Lagos State Government agreed
to implement CONMESS fully via the letter LGS/HOS/06/VOL. VI/30 dated 19th
November 2010 and signed by Adesegun Ogunlewe as Head of Service.
The strike was again
resumed in February 2011 because the Lagos Government failed to honour its
November 19th 2010 Agreement. The 2011 Strike was called off
after the LASG re-affirmed commitment to implement CONMESS fully. See below as
endorsed by the immediate past Governor Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Dr. Jide Idris –
the Lagos State Commissioner for Health and Dr. Henry Ajomale – Lagos State
Chairman of ACN.
LAGOS GOVERNMENT SHOULD
RESPECT AGREEMENTS WITH DOCTORS NOW!
Lagos State
Government is using public power recklessly to victimise and repress the
Doctors for daring to demand that their legitimate rights and Collective
Agreements should be respected.
The State has a
responsibility to protect the citizens including the provision of adequate
healthcare. Yet, Governor Fashola sent his father abroad for medical treatment
at the time the Doctors’ Strike is on. Since Governor Fashola spuriously claims
he sacked the doctors to protect public interest, we should ask: If the
Governor is to protect the people, why did he send his own father abroad for
treatment? Why are the necessary medical equipments not available in Lagos
Hospitals since we have medical experts that can treat his father here? Why has
he resorted to the use of incompetent “referral doctors” who are being enticed
with a wage twice what they ought to have been paid if they are in regular
employment?
The illegal sack of the Doctors
and neglect of the health sector by Lagos State Government is driven by its
preference for projects that provide cover for private accumulation of wealth
and diverting public fund to service jamborees and patronage to political
jobbers at the expense of human life and social welfare. Implementing CONMESS
fully, according to the Lagos Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) would cause
just additional N33.5 million monthly, compared to its looting spree to line
private hands and profiteers.
LAGOSIANS MUST RISE
AGAINST THE INSENSITIVE AND ANTI-PEOPLE POLICIES OF THE LAGOS GOVERNMENT
Governor Fashola should
not be allowed to go on with these bad policies. One of the anti-poor policies
is the issue of the Taxi Drivers.
The Lagos State
Government is operating an unlawful policy instrument to run the poor Lagos
taxi operators out of business. It banned the use of Tokunbo cars for regular
taxi business and put in private hands a money-spinning ‘deal’ that compelled
taxi operators to buy a car worth N4.5 million only from its pool of ‘private
contractors’.
Also, Lagos Governor
is using sponsored thugs and police arrest to victimise and harass these
hapless and poor taxi operators. Despite that it is clear to the Lagos State
House of Assembly and even to Governor Fashola who is a SAN, that no such law
exists in Lagos State to deny the poor from running the business of Taxi, the
Lagos Government in its penchant for illegallity and lawlessness is using its
Licensing Authority to deny any taxi operator that does not patronise its
prohibitive N4.5m car deals, registration of their vehicle as taxi.
JAF urges Lagosians,
Nigerians and the international public to rise to RESIST the attack by the
Lagos Government on the Taxi Drivers and other anti-poor attacks such as the
increase in school fees in LASU beyond the reach of poor parents, repression of
Lekki residents who are demanding the abrogation of the illegal toll gate
payment, distortion in the payment of TSS to Primary and Secondary Teachers,
underpayment of the N18,000 Minimum Wage to its civil servants, and the daily
harassment, arrest and detention of Okada riders, poor market traders and women
by RRS, KAI, and LASTMA.
DARE
TO STRUGGLE, DARE TO WIN!
Dr. Oladipo Fashina Comrade Abiodun Aremu
JAF Chairperson JAF
Secretary
I support.
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