John Adams, Minna
The Niger state government and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) is posed for a showdown over the decision of the government to deduct 30 percent of civil servants salary due to drop in allocation from the federation account.
The labour rose from its expanded marathon meeting on Tuesday insisting that it will not collect anything less than 100% salary for its members.
Government had last week offered 70 percent salary to workers, saying that there was shortfall in its income especially from the Federation Account Allocation Committee FAAC
According to the government salaries of civil servants are to be slashed by 30% while those of local government staff would be reduced by 40%.
Speaking to newsmen in Minna on Tuesday after the meeting, chairman of NLC in the state Comrade Yakubu Garba said “We can’t take anything less than 100% we can stay for 3 months, we can even stay for 1 year without salary all we know is that we will only take 100% of our salaries”
Garba said the Congress had reached out to all its affiliate unions asking them to take a decision on the issue saying that ” the returns we have got so far is that all the congresses favour only 100% payment”.
The Labour leader said Congress would meet on Thursday to deliberate on  the submissions after which ” we will issue an ultimatum to the government”
It was gathered that as a result of the disagreement between Labour and Government salaries of workers  for the month of June expected to have been paid since on the 25th of the month has been put on hold.
It was also learnt that government on Monday started the payment of pensioners and political office with pensioners receiving their normal pensions while political office holders pay was slashed by 30% as directed by Governor Abubakar Sani Bello.