The Joint Health Sector Union says the seven-day warning strike embarked upon by the union is legal.
This, the Union said, is contrary to reports credited to the Minister of Labour, Dr. Chris Ngige, who described the strike as illegal.
Biobelemoye Josiah, the National Chairman of the union, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Friday in Abuja.
However, Josiah noted that the minister was not properly briefed hence such statement, adding that the union gave the Federal Government 92 days ultimatum from February to enable it meet their demands.
He explained that his predecessor suspended strike action on the issue on February 4, 2015.
The chairman added that the law provides that you do not need go through full process again before suspending another action in the event of stalemate.
Josiah however decried the statement by the committee set up by the government to wade into the matter as saying they are ignorant of the disputed issues.
According to him: “They are part of the committee that met with our predecessors last year.”
He described the tactics as a way of denying the union their benefits.
The issues include payment of CONHESS 10 skipping to its members, issuance of implementation circular on salary adjustment as done for the medical doctors.
However, Josiah urged the public to impress on the government to do the right thing to avoid disruption in the health system.
According to him, the Union and the Government continue with the deliberation this year, adding that they halted the process due to the intervention of the late former minister of State for Labour and sympathy for the poor masses.
He said: “The Minister was not properly briefed hence the statement because we suspended this very action by my predecessor on February 4, 2015.
“As the law provides, if you have suspended an action, you do not need to go through full process before you de-suspend.
“Within 48 hours you can resume strike.
“But because we are peace loving people, we put into consideration the plight of Nigerians the effect of the strike.
“So we exhibited our usual patience and from February last year, when we suspended action, till date we have given series of ultimatum.
“In order to give government ample time to resolve the issues, even in the presence of clear bias and provocation, we still maintained our patience.
“We are aware that bodies that are not under the law proceed on strike and they have been meeting their demands.
“The document we have submitted time without number they now request that we should submit it again.
“But this is supposed to be the responsibility of the Ministry of Health to call their officers to forward what has been in their custody.
“We went extra miles simply because we wanted the issues to be resolved.
“This is a clear case of deliberate act of denying us what is due us by applying the delay tactics.”
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