The Nigeria Labour Congress has threatened to picket media houses that have outstanding salaries to pay their workers.
Ayuba Wabba, the NLC President, said this in interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Wednesday.
Wabba said that the non-payment of salaries by the media organisations was hindering the flow of credible information for the benefit of the country.
Wabba said: “Particularly, the NUJ president is concerned about the state of affairs in some of our media houses where the journalists are not being paid by their media practitioners.
“And we thought that it is something that must be given priority; we have written to some of those media houses to try to see how those issues can be resolved.
“In essence if that is not done, we are also going to visit some of these media houses because a worker deserves his wages, particularly this important arm of our society that needs to actually disseminate credible information for the benefit of our country because we need an independent press to be able to add value to the process of development.
“We will picket them; we have written to some of them; some of them have had an agreement which they have not respected.
“We have also written them urging them to respect such an agreement.”
According to the NLC president, journalists constitute an important arm of the society that needs to actually disseminate creditable information for the benefit of the country and the entire world.
Wabba said that NLC would work with NUJ to ensure that no worker in the industry was owed or denied their salaries.
He criticised the recent attack on the media organisations such as the Premium Times and National Trail.
He said that in spite of a court order on the release of the publisher of National Trail, he was still being held in detention.
He said: “I am not sure this is the dividend of democracy; we would always canvass for the rule of law.
“So citizens, particularly journalists, must be treated with fairness in accordance with the principles of the law.
“NUJ has written officially and we have also been communicated and we thought we should lend our voice and not allow a situation where those that will give very creditable information to the public are at the receiving end.
“As NLC, we want to say that journalists must continue to be respected and must be allowed to do their work freely without harassment and intimidation.”
He, therefore, called on all Nigerians to subject themselves to the principles of the rule of law as it would ensure peaceful coexistence in the country.
NAN.
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