The federal government in an attempt to resolve the labor crisis occasioned by the sacking of 45,000 workers in Kaduna State, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, set up a nine-man panel made up of six representatives of the state government and three officials of the Nigeria Labour Congress on Thursday the 20th of May, 2021.

The committee, which is meant to submit its report by May 25, is to further discuss with the sole purpose of coming up with a work plan on how to integrate the provision of Section 20 of the Labour Act, CAP L1 LFN, 2004, to resolve the dispute between the state government and the NLC.

The Act provides comprehensive legislation on employment and working conditions and sets out general provisions relating to wages, contracts, and terms of employment.

According to a document issued at the end of the meeting in Abuja,it was decided that the committee should have a Chairman. The Head of Service of the Kaduna State Government and assisted by the Deputy National President of the NLC was selected to chair the panel.

The decision was jointly signed by the Kaduna State Head of Service, Bariatu Mohammed, NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, Commissioner for Local Government, Kaduna State,  Ja’afaru Sani, NLC Deputy President, Najeem Usman, Director,  Trade Union Services and Industrial Relations, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mrs Omoabie Akpan and the Director Finance and Accounts, Muoneke Aloy.

According to a part of the communique, “The committee is expected to revert with the work plan for peaceful resolution of all issues in contention to the Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment by Tuesday 25th May 2021.

“The meeting agreed that all the listed issues fall within the ambit of redundancy therefore, it was resolved that the principle of redundancy as stated in section 20 of Labour Act, Cap L 1, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria should apply.

“The meeting also recognized that the current impasse was caused by communication gap between the state government and NLC occasioned by both the local chapter and even the Kaduna State Government officials.”

The statement said the committee’s work plan was to ‘’itemize the structure and sub-structure in the state and local government of their activities, time of commencement and envisaged final tenure of the committee or make recommendations if in its wisdom it thinks the committee should be a Permanent Standing Committee.”