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B N W: Biafra Nigeria World News |
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Labour Bill A Toothless Bulldog, Say NLC Leaders
THE controversial Labour Bill passed by the Senate on Thursday may after all be a toothless bulldog.
Indeed, while uninformed members of the public are raising dust over the bill that was yet to be passed by the House of Representatives, labour leaders sounded unperturbed last night.
Their optimism stems from the difficulty in applying the law to intended end. In particular, the section of the bill outlawed strikes and picketing, prescribing a six-month jail term or N10,000 fine for anyone who violates any provision of the amendment.
However, Labour is reportedly glad that the Senate amended the provisions of the executive bill, which only centred on making strikes illegal without addressing the issue of lockout by employer. In the passed bill, the senators also outlawed lockouts.
Sources told The Guardian last night that the labour was not moved by the law, which provides for six months jail term for erring labour leaders, as "it is not particularly new to the labour terrain."
For example, they referred to the Murtala Mohammed regime in the 1970s, which provided for the imposition of a death penalty on tanker drivers for striking yet none was ever executed.
In the same vein, there is a strong perception within the labour circles that from experience such punishment might not easily be invoked because of possible consequences that will follow since labour strikes are usually emotional developments.
Special reference was made to the case of some senior staff of the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), who were tried and jailed for going on strike but were later released because of the difficulty in administering the laws.
Feelers from the Labour movement also show that it is not taken aback by the issue of multiplicity of labour unions. The NLC leadership has made it clear that it is not opposed to multiple labour centres.
Union leaders' argument is that it is not a democratic requirement to destroy existing organisations in order to build more "as INEC did not have to de-register PDP and ANPP to create more political parties in 2003."
Labour sources said that the Senate might just have succeeded in meeting the strategic minimum expectations of the union by upholding existing labour centres while opening up the space for new ones.
It is also widely believed that the senators in passing the bill, and in trying to outlaw strikes, refused to be guided by their own recent experience.
On the day it was supposed to pass the Labour Bill, the Upper House handed a 48-hour strike ultimatum to President Olusegun Obasanjo to remove the Federal Capital Territory Minister, Malam Nasir el-Rufai.
The feelings are widespread within the movement that "if going on strike is criminal and calls for jail term as provided by the bill, then the senators should be sent for trial and bag possible jail terms for daring to use their constitutional right to go on strike to express their grievance."
A labour leader said last night that "labour perhaps has more confidence in the Lower legislature, which is widely perceived to be more progressive than the Upper House hurriedly passed the bill without getting the necessary quorum."
Meanwhile, some Nigerians have blamed the NLC for the passage of the Labour Reform Bill. Mr. Doyin Odebowale, a lawyer and a founding member of National Conscience (now NCP) said that "one is not surprised at the turn of events against the NLC today because for some time now, the union could be said to be working against the interest of this masses indirectly."
He said if the NLC leadership had been genuine with some of their actions lately, its mobilisation against the Labour Bill would have been successful.
Odebowale told The Guardian that "when a body like the NLC supports the ruinous policies of this government such as privatisation, by which the commanding heights of the national economy is being taken over by the few who have been looting our treasury, where then is the sincerity of purpose?"
Picking on the antecedents of the labour leaders as partly responsible for the mess in which Labour now finds itself, he said that "with the NLC President being a member of the Privatisation Council, how can he justify his commitment to Labour cause?"
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