THE battle against the Trade Unions Amendment Bill passed by the Senate last Thursday has continued with the opposition coalition, Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP), saying the bill can be nullified by the judiciary.
CNPP said at the weekend that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), which the bill seeks to scrap, should ignore the Senate and look beyond the House of Representatives passage of the bill and President Olusegun Obasanjo’s assent to make it law. NLC itself was said to be weighing the legal option last week to determine the chance of success.
“It should be clear to all and sundry that nothing can stop the Bill from being passed by the House of Representatives as the Senate has already done and the President appending his signature. Afterall we know the antecedent of this National Assembly which is nothing but a rubber stamp of the Presidency. Given this scenario, we ask the NLC to ignore the Senate and what we know the Representatives and Obasanjo will do concerning this Bill and head for the court,” the coalition led by Alhaji Balarabe Musa stated.
High points of the Bill passed by the Senate last Thursday included the removal of NLC as the country’s central labour organisation, voluntary membership of unions and obligation on employers to only remit union dues from workers who expressly permit so in writing.
It also gives power to the registrar of trade unions to use his discretion to register unions.
The bill was passed to the second reading stage by the House of Representatives last Wednesday at a session watched by Chief Audu Ogbeh, the national chairman of the ruling PDP which has the majority in both houses of the National Assembly.
Also in Ogbeh’s team were the PDP National Secretary, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, National Vice Chairman (South-West), Chief Olabode George, his South-East counterpart, Nze Fidelis Ozichukwu, National Organisation Secretary, Inuwa Labaran, among others.
CNPP, which spoke through its secretary -general Maxi Okwu, said Friday that the PDP leadership’s presence at the House session underscored the importance the president attached to the passage of the bill believed to have been initiated by Obasanjo to scrap NLC as a vendetta for opposing many of its policies in the last five years.
“By now the NLC should be preparing to go to the Supreme Court to contest the constitutionality of the law as we know that after the representatives would have passed the bill, what will follow will be the harmonisation of the difference between their version and the Senate’s own and then Mr President’s assent,” the coalition said.
It continued: “After this, the NLC can go to court and contest the constitutionality of the law on the grounds that the power given to the registrar of trade unions by one of the provisions of the bill to use his discretion to register or not register a union infringes on the peoples right to associate.”
“Section 39 of the constitution deals with the right to peaceful assembly like mass protests and demonstrations while section 40 deals with freedom of association. These are the provisions that the labour bill clearly infringes upon,” the CNPP said.
The coalition added: “We do not have any doubts in our minds that if NLC contests the constitutionality of the labour law in the court, it would be nullified.”
Sources close to the NLC told Sunday Vanguard weekend that the Congress was not foreclosing a legal action as the last resort to the problem ignited by the Trade Unions Bill.
