Workers yesterday vowed to stay at home from next week until further notice over the worsening naira scarcity.
They said they can no longer pay for transportation fares to work.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) also directed all its affiliate unions to mobilise for the picketing of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) offices, including its headquarters in Abuja, from next week until cash is made available.
It asked workers to stay at home to enable them to join in the picketing exercise.
But the apex bank hinted yesterday about plans to flood the banks with old naira notes from today
The naira crisis has also worsened gender inequalities and made women poorer, according to Minister of Women Affairs, Dame Pauline Kedem Tallen.
She said as good as the cash-less and naira redesign policy is, the ramifications have meant millions of women have been left behind.
The minister spoke at the 2023 edition of the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) International Women’s Day celebration in Abuja.
Tallen said this inequality is exacerbated by “the new monetary policy as we go cashless”.
She said a solution must be found to what she called “growing inequalities which have left women poorer”.
NLC President, Joe Ajaero, gave the picketing and sit-at-home directive during a briefing at the end of the Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting.
Ajaero said the exercise would be “total and till further notice.”
The labour leader said the directive became imperative following the expiration of the one-week ultimatum given to the CBN to make cash available to Nigerians last week.
He said the situation had not changed since the ultimatum was issued, forcing the Congress to decide on the picketing of CBN offices nationwide.
He said mobilisation for the picketing would commence on Friday ahead of next week.
The NLC President lamented that despite the Supreme Court order allowing the old N500 and N1,000 notes to circulate with the new notes till December 31, the situation is getting worse as workers cannot access cash to pay fares to work and cannot buy food for their families.
The NLC last week gave the CBN and commercial banks a one-week ultimatum to make naira notes available.
The organisation said it would direct workers to stay at home if the CBN failed to comply.
Ajaero said: “Last week at the end of our CWC meeting, we gave a one-week ultimatum for the Federal Government to address immediately, among other issues, the issue of cash crunch that was caused by the policy.
“As of this morning when the CWC met again to review the situation, we discovered that not much improvement has been made.
“The situation is still almost the same. People are still buying our currency with our currencies.
“People can no longer access the currency and the government seems to be very adamant about this.
“No moves have been made to reduce the suffering of Nigerians.
“Consequently, the CWC-in-session resolved to go into the process of actualising the one-week notice. Nation
