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Reps committee begins public hearing on
Labour Reform Bill
By Uchenna Awom
National
Assembly
Correspondent, Abuja
The House of Representatives Ad-Hoc
Committee on Trade Union (Amendment) Bill flagged off the public hearing on the
bill on Thursday in Abuja. It will set the stage for the passage of their own
version of the controversial bill with two trade unions calling for the
dissolution of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
The Senate had already passed the bill.
Although it rejected the call for the scrapping of NLC as a central labour
organization but agreed that it is desirable to allow for multiple trade union
centers to exist side by side with NLC currently engaged in a tug of war with
the Government over fuel price increase.
But two unrecognized labour centers, the
Trade Union Congress (TUC) which is the umbrella body for Senior Staff
associations and another, Bureau of African Labour Democratic Rights said
scrapping NLC will create a level playing field for other umbrella congresses
waiting to be registered.
Leading the demand, defeated NLC
Presidential aspirant, Clever Nnorom, who also said he left the NLC because of
the way he was treated said if the House refused to pass the bill in such a way
that NLC will be dissolved, it will amount to partiality.
In the same vein, Thompson Kolawale,
General Secretary of TUC, said retaining the name ‘NLC’ will create
a technical problem for other aspiring labour centers because it will give
undue advantage to NLC adding that in the first place the law that created a
sole labour center was undemocratic and should not be allowed.
Earlier, the Chairman of the Ad-Hoc
Committee, Obeten Obeten, said the committee is commited to galvanizing the
views of all stakeholders in the Labour sector and the larger Nigerian Society
and impact these views on the eventual report to the House of Representatives,
“as these views of Nigerians mirrored against the backdrop of our reform
agenda for the economy, labour being a pivotal agent in stabilizing both the
polity and the economy.
“We must always remind ourselves
that we can never wish away any provision of our constitution however, exalted
our positions may be, because that is our National totem, therefore, for any
reform agenda to succeed, it must treat the rights guaranteed by the
constitution as sacrosanct and inviolable”, he said.
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