NLC Unveils Mass Action Plans Today
Labour Bill
By Chris Nwachuku in Lagos and Juliana Taiwo in Abuja
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) leadership may today unveil fresh strategies aimed at checkmating the passage of the Labour bill currently before the National Assembly.
The decisions will be made at the National Executive Com-mittee (NEC) emergency meeting holding in Abuja. The meeting is also expected to approve the resolution of the Central Working Comiitee which met in Lagos last Thursday.
Although details of the resolution were sketchy, NLC President Adams Oshiomhole told newsmen that Labour would mobilise Nigerians especially the workers to resist the bill and urged the citizens not to stand aloof while government destroy the NLC on the basis of its consistent championing of people's interest.
Oshiomhole said NLC will give details of its plans on how to counter government measure.
The Labour bill which last week passed the first reading in the Senate among others, seeks to outlaw NLC, one of the three main labour centers in the country, stop automatic check off dues and ban and make strike a criminal offence.
Some of the NEC members who arrived Abuja last night, said the meeting will come up with detailed plans on how to stage a mass action across the 36 states and Abuja.
Today's meeting is also expected to give further mandate to the Labour leadership to continue lobbying National Assembly members while the state councils may be directed to meet with federal lawmakers from their states as well as opinion leaders to explain the dangers the bill posed to the current democratic project.
Oshiomhole at weekend told newsmen that labour policy of the present government is worse than that of the governments of Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha. According to him, even at the darkest point of the trade union history, neither Babangida nor Abacha sought to outlaw the existence of Labour.
Oshiomole said the military government only strived to weaken organised Labour by dissolving the national leadership of NLC. He stated that Labour will resist the current posture of government, insisting that the action was vindictive and an attempt to silence Labour for opposing the irregular fuel price increase and other unjust policy.
NLC said the Labour bill will not in any way affect its commitment to the defence of the masses of Nigerians.
Meanwhile the Labour Party (LP) has condemned the proposed amendment of the Trade Union Act, describing it as an assault on the constitution and the rights of Nigerians by the People's Democratic Party (PDP) led government.
In a press statement signed by its National Chairman Barrister Dan Nwanyanwu, the party said the Bill is unconstitutional.
"This is against Section 40 of the Nigerian constitution, which provides that 'every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union of any other association for the protection of his interest".
The party said though it believed that some of Nigeria's labour laws need to be reviewed to bring them up to international standards and eliminate the legacies of the military, the proposed labour law review has to be tripartite in nature and involve contributions from the stakeholders in the industrial relations system.
"In targeting the right to strike, the government aims to deprive workers the benefit of a universally recognised and legally sanctioned means of pursuing their grievances. To seek to assault the right to strike now shows that this government has much worse things to push down the throat of Nigerian people," it stated.
LP also alleges that the PDP government's agenda is aimed at destroying a critical platform for the principled, constructive, people-driven and pan-Nigerian opposition to bad governance offered by the NLC.
"This would endanger the democratic process and the national interest and help the PDP to realise its ambition of a one-party state," it stated.
The party noted that Nigerian people and their families have benefited from the collective organisation of Nigerian workers, especially in the last five years in which it had taken the NLC to reverse the anti-people policies, disposition and pace of the PDP government.
It urged President Olusegun Obasanjo to immediately withdraw the bill as he has been urged by international civil society and other Nigerians and not to be driven by anger arising from recent campaigns of the NLC.
It also urged the National Assembly not to pass the Labour bill. The party advised federal legislators to be guided by the Nigerian constitution and the rights and interests of workers while taking decisions on the bill.
"On some of the campaigns waged on behalf of Nigerian people, even the distinguished Senate and the Honourable House of Representative had passed motions supporting the positions of the NLC. The National Assembly is therefore advised not to enrol its name on the role of infamy", it noted.
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