NLC, poly teachers want lawmakers to reject labour bill
From Segun Ayeoyenikan, Abuja
THE Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has appealed to the Nantional Assembly not to pass the bill proposing amendment to the Trade Unions Act presented by President Olusegun Obasanjo.
In a letter to both the Senate President, Chief Adolphus Wabara and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari yesterday in Abuja, NLC President, Mr. Adams Oshiomhole said that the bill has a serious negative implication on the rights of workers and trade unions.
The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic (ASUP) also asked the National Assembly not to pass the bill. The letters to the National Assembly read in part: "We are much encouraged by your Excellency's widely publicised assurances that the House would be fair-minded as usual in its deliberation over the bill considering the serious concerns expressed by the Nigerian public and many sections of the international community."
The Labour reform bill, which is currently before the National Assembly seeks among others, to de-register the NLC as a central labour organisation, restrict the workers choice of using a strike in pursuit of grievances, vest in the Minister of Labour the discretion to register or not to register new labour centres and the power to determine the centre with which a union must seek affiliation.
According to the NLC's letter, "not only would the reform clauses introduced by the President cripple unionism in the Nigerian system, it would give a bad image in the international arena of the kind of democracy practised in Nigeria," Labour also held that the bill was unconstitutional as it seeks to interfere with the rights of workers to associate and organise themselves, rights which they derived directly from the constitution of the country.
While urging the National Assembly to jettison the reform bill, Labour further said: "If the Nigerian Constitution recognises the interests of workers and their rights to pursue them collectively through their unions, another law cannot seek to deny them the decisive instrument for giving expression to these interests."
The NLC appealed to the lawmakers to reflect also on the various concerns, which had been expressed by other Nigerians over the bill.
In a statement in Lagos yesterday, ASUP's spokesman Mr. Oke Ladipo-Smart said: "We condemn the desperate efforts by the Federal Government to dismember the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC)."
He described as inimical the move by government to "democratise" Labour. "It is not only inimical to progress and good governance, but an attempt to institutionalise and entrench despotism in our body polity," he added.
Ladipo-Smart urged the National Assembly to work in concert with Labour to "free the nation from the shackles of slavery and exploitation."
He stressed the need for the government to tolerate divergent views on issues of national interest to ensure peace, progress and stability.
Ladipo-Smart also urged government to prevail on the Governing Council and the management of Kwara State Polytechnic to rescind the suspension placed on Mr. Ola Adefila, chairman of the union's local chapter.
"If the situation is not reversed by the end of August, we might be compelled to take far-reaching decisions, which might jeopardise the existing peace in the various polytechnics," he said.
