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ILO and proposed amendment to Trade Union Act
When sometime ago the Federal Government
hastily introduced the Bill with which it sought to amend the nation’s
labour laws, one of the reasons it gave to the nation was that it wanted to
align the nation’s law on labour with the International Labour
Organization [ILO] Rules and Regulations. But people who saw the contents of
the draft law immediately sounded the alarm that far from modernising the
nation’s labour environment, what the Bill seeks to achieve is to muzzle
labour and weaken its ability to rally its members against bad government
policies. Caught red handed, the Government then told the nation that all it
was doing was to bring our laws up-to-date with global practices.
In the proposed amendment, the Federal Government
wants to break the Nigeria Labour Congress by pushing for the creation of
several little and ineffective trade unions with the added plan to make
membership of the unions voluntary. It pointed to the provisions of the
Constitution dealing with the freedom of association as the justification for
the amendment. That however sounded quite strange. Enlightened members of the
society have been wondering when has it become the concern of the Federal
Government that Nigerians should have the freedom to associate. If that was not
a self-serving argument, it should have been clear to the Government that it is
the same right to associate that enabled Nigerian workers to come together
under the umbrella of the NLC. Creating many conflicting unions, apart from
achieving the sinister goal of the Government of weakening NLC, would also
operate to diminish the rights of the Nigerian people to come together for
whatever purpose they choose, including in the defence of their rights as
workers.
Contrary to the case being made by the Government
that it wants the labour laws and labour environment to be changed in line with
the constitution, what the proposed amendment actually intends is to take away
the rights of Nigerians guaranteed under Section 40 with regard to the freedom
of association by giving the Labour Minister the power to register trade unions
and the discretion to reject those he does not like. We think this plan is
undemocratic and should never have been made by a government that claims to be
democratic in the first place. The rights guaranteed for Nigerians under the
Constitution should not be whittled down in the name of amendments.
The fact that there is no good faith in the whole
transaction has been brought out so clearly by several subsequent revelations
that many are simply wondering why the government is still pushing ahead with
the obnoxious amendment plan. We are particularly worried that whereas the
Government had told the nation that it was acting in accordance with the ILO
rules, the ILO representatives in Nigeria, Mr. Cornelius Dzakpasu, on the
contrary, stunned the nation with a completely different position on the law which,
when taken together, actually indicates that the Government amendment plan is
solely targeted at the leadership of the NLC, in the short-run and against the
Nigerian public, in the long-run. Addressing the National Assembly Ad hoc
Committee on the Labour Bill, the ILO representative easily
single-handedly punctured gaping
holes in the arguments of two Ministers of the Federation, namely, Employment
Minister Hussein Lawan and Justice Minister Akin Olujimi, pushing for the
amendment.
According to the ILO spokesperson, the Convention of
the international body which Nigeria has signed forbids the Government or its
agencies from interfering in activities of labour unions. When it was pointed
out to the duo that the Convention was binding on Nigeria since it was duly
signed, they replied that since it has not been “domesticated” into
Nigerian laws, it is therefore not binding on Nigeria! One would think that the
nation was back to the Abacha days of pariah-ship when it was fashionable to pick and
chose civilised rules according to how convenient they were for the dictator.
We found that argument to be both demeaning and puerile at this age and time.
It is ludicrous to suggest that Nigeria would be making laws that are clearly
at variance with internationally acknowledged rules and regulations that were
fashioned out to promote industrial democracy and labour rights worldwide. This
line of argument may be tolerated from tin-pot dictators of yore but certainly
not a government that lay claim to democratic credentials these days.
Government officials must search for other reasons for this move if they would
not be making monumental mockery of themselves before a world society that is
already growing restive to the growing fears that dictatorship is creeping back
to Nigeria.
It should be clear to the Government that the
proposed Bill cannot stop incessant strikes, as undesirable as they may seem,
in the country. Nothing can stop a truly determined body of workers that wants
to go on strike from doing so. Instead of tinkering with the nation’s
labour laws in bad faith and sheer pettiness, we suggest that the Government
should start making good policies and implementing them faithfully. That is the
only solution to frequent embarrassing protest strike actions.
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