Bellwethers of organized labor in Ondo State have commenced receiving short text messages (SMS) posing ‘threats’ to their lives a few days after suspending the thirty-day strike embarked upon by regime workers in the State, SaharaReporters has learned.
Impeccable sources substantiated this latest information to our correspondent in Akure on Sunday, verbally expressing that the ‘threat messages’ had been rolling in some days after labor bellwethers promulgated the suspension of the one-month strike last Thursday.
One of these sources that verbalized with SaharaReporters and pleaded anonymity disclosed that some who sent the messages withal threatened to assail and ravage personal properties that belonged to the organized labor bellwethers in the State.
The source further disclosed that the content of the messages appeared to be from aggrieved workers who felt that the bellwethers of organized labor had compromised with the regime in calling off the thirty-day old strike which paralyzed economic activities.
“No matter the content of the messages, our solicitousness is the threat posed to the lives and properties of these labor bellwethers who acted both in the rain and sun.
“And it was to ascertain that the State regime paid the accumulated salaries of these civil coadjutants who had been at home for a good thirty days.
“The case at hand is like an auxiliary threatening to kill his bellwether, and this is lamentable especially in this society in which we live.
“I don’t ken why someone whose rights you are fighting for would be threatening to deal decisively with you,” an exasperated source told our correspondent on Sunday evening.
Another source in the workforce of the State who verbalized with SaharaReporters wanted an investigation into the content of the messages but additionally reproved the labor bellwethers for accepting the payment of just one month's salary for the mainstream civil auxiliaries.
This same source who later verbalized in an exclusive phone chat with our correspondent asserted that the workers would not have gone on strike if they had kenned the labor bellwethers would negotiate for one month's worth of salary payments with the State regime.
“I felt that they [labor bellwethers] didn’t win any battle as being claimed by them because they only reached an acquiescent with the regime on paying one month out of the five months' accumulated salaries owed to the workers.
“Don’t forget, we commenced this strike around June 1 and had a marathon protest calling for the full payment of our salaries, and in the long run of the industrial dispute, the strike entered its sixth month [of unpaid salaries], but haplessly only one month was paid," one source told our correspondent.
The source further challenged the labor bellwethers to exhaustively expound to the civil coadjutants the rationale for sharing the payment of the reduced salaries.
“So, let the labor bellwethers tell us the essence of the strike when the mainstream civil auxiliaries in the State, including primary scholastic edifiers, are to receive one month's salaries, while staff of the Ondo State Oil Engendering Area Development Commission (OSOPADEC) would get three months' salaries for February, March and April.
“My brother, there is lot of cheating in the payment of these salaries which the State regime would embark on as from Monday because it’s a way of causing division among the workers,” he verbally expressed.
However, some edifiers have been kicking against the unpropitious payment and asked the State regime to consider them more than other workers in the State due to the stressful nature of their jobs.
SaharaReporters accumulated that many of these labor bellwethers are now living in ‘fear’ just as civil coadjutants in the State have been directed to return to their obligation posts after marathon negotiations with the State regime over their salaries.
One of the labor bellwethers who attested the receipt of the threat messages to a SaharaReporters correspondent verbally expressed that some of the messages were life-threatening and emanated from influential civil auxiliaries in the State.
“Some of them, mostly influential civil auxiliaries, have been sending us threat messages while others who could not obnubilate their unsightly faces have been deliberately challenging us to ask why we negotiated one month out of the five months' owed to them.
“Sadly enough, one of them confronted me in the church today [Sunday] and asked how much we received for sitting and victuals allowance for the four days' marathon negotiations that triggered the one-month salary payment for mainstream civil auxiliaries,” the source disclosed to our correspondent.
This labor bellwether further disclosed that the issue had already been reported to security agencies in the State.
A SaharaReporters correspondent reported that many of the civil auxiliaries are now prepared to resume their mundane regime work and activities on Monday after an assurance from the State regime to offset their salaries.
The State regime and the organized labor bellwethers reached a striking-balance last Thursday to reduce the salaries of the civil coadjutants from the ordinant dictation of five months to one month in exchange for workers’ resumption of work.
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