JOHESU agrees to suspend strike

The Joint Health Sector Unions has agreed to suspend its 10-day old strike.
Biobelemoye Josiah, the National Chairman of JOHESU, said this while briefing newsmen after the conciliatory meeting at the instance of the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, on Saturday in Abuja.
Josiah said the leadership of JOHESU would hold an emergency National Executive Council meeting on October 3, with the hope of suspending the ongoing strike.
He said: “Our members are expected to arrive Abuja for the meeting on Tuesday to ratify the agreement reached.
“NEC will deliberate on the agreements reached with the Federal Government with a view to call off the ongoing strike action early next week.”
Prof. Stephen Ocheni, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, also told newsmen that all issues presented by the unions were exhaustively discussed.
Ocheni said the agreement reached was with specific timelines.
He added committees are to be set up to deliberate on the new demands presented by the unions.
It would be recalled that JOHESU had embarked on an indefinite strike on September 20 over non-implementation of the agreement reached with the Federal Government.
The unions demands include adjustment of CONHESS salary as done for CONMESS since 2014, and abolition of scale to scale promotion, payment of outstanding arrears of promotion, skipping and relativity.
Others are autonomy of Teaching and Specialist Hospitals, non-implementation of court judgments, review of retirement age from 60-65 years as done for the Tertiary Education Sector.