A meeting between labour leaders in Cross River State and the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Eteng Williams, to resolve the ongoing industrial action which began on October 12, 2021.
A similar meeting with the Head of Service, Mrs Geraldine Akpet-Ekanem, and other government officials had ended in a deadlock last week.
The meeting was attended by the state chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Benedict Ukpepi, and other union leaders from the Trade Union Congress and the Joint Public Service Negotiating Council.
It was gathered that discussion with the Speaker did not go beyond appeals for labour to call off the strike.
Williams was quoted as saying that it was his intervention that got the state governor, Ben Ayade, to approve N50million in the 2022 Budget from his initial plan of N30million monthly for payment of gratuity.
At the meeting,Labour contended that going by the huge backlog of gratuity, N50million monthly in a year would amount to N600million which cannot pay a quarter of gratuity for even 2014, let alone clear over N17billion before (Ayade) leaves office in 2023.
