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1.
Introduction
I feel greatly
honoured to be here today with my
colleagues in the State Executive
Committee of the Rivers State Council of
the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria
(TUC) and other persons in our entourage
on this memorable courtesy visit.
On behalf of my
colleagues in the Rivers State Council
of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria
(TUC), I wish to express our profound
appreciation to the State Controller,
Mr. Cletus Nnadi, for sparing time
despite his very tight schedule to
receive the TUC Rivers State new
leadership elected during our Triennial
State Delegates’ Conference held in Port
Harcourt on December 14 2009. I
understand he had to travel all the way
from Jos just to attend this meeting in
person as mark of his respect for the
Rivers State Council of the Trade Union
Congress of Nigeria (TUC). This is
indeed a very great demonstration of the
value you place on our relationship and
we shall not let you down!
2.
Reasons for this Visit
This courtesy visit
is to enable the State TUC new team
build and maintain salubrious
relationship with the Federal Ministry
of Labour and Productivity, obtain first
hand information on issues of mutual
interest, and share thoughts on best
approaches that will ensure the
realisation of our shared vision of
enthroning and maintaining an atmosphere
of industrial peace and harmony
necessary for the economic recovery and
development of our Rivers State.
We also want to use
this opportunity to intimate your
Ministry of our plans and programmes and
to humbly request for your support and
cooperation to enable us fulfil our
promises to our members and affiliates
in an atmosphere of peace and industrial
harmony. We would similarly like to use
this opportunity to convey our
willingness to cooperate and collaborate
with you on issues of common interest.
This is in line with our determination
and resolve to enthrone and maintain, to
the best of our ability and as
circumstances can best allow, an
atmosphere of industrial peace and
harmony.
Sir, as you are aware
enthroning and maintaining an atmosphere
of industrial peace and harmony in
Rivers State is a joint responsibility
of all the parties to industrial
relations in the state. It is a function
of the actions and inactions of all the
parties and therefore requires the
determination, commitment, collaboration
and mutual understanding of the key
parties (i.e. Labour Unions, Employers,
Government and her agencies). On behalf
of the Rivers State Council of the Trade
Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), we
however want to assure you that on our
part, we will do our best to make your
tenure in Rivers State a memorable,
fulfilling and peaceful one. We will
also do our best to enthrone and
maintain an atmosphere of Industrial
peace and harmony in Rivers State. In
the same vein, we expect your
cooperation and collaboration in our
efforts to have a successful, fulfilling
and peaceful tenure in TUC as well as in
enthroning and maintaining industrial
peace and harmony in Rivers State.
3.
Expectation from our members and
TUC affiliates
As you may be aware
our affiliates and members expect TUC as
the umbrella body of the Senior Staff
Associations in Nigeria to provide
direction for the labour movement in our
country and accordingly the Rivers State
Council under the new leadership plans
to position our State Council and
affiliates to proactively meet the
rising industrial relations challenges.
As we speak here, our affiliates and
members expect us to address some
burning labour and industrial relations
issues. We are therefore under
obligation to map out appropriate
strategies to tackle the labour issues
relating to the following:
1) Expatriate
Quota Abuse
2) Contract
staffing and casualisation
3) Health,
Safety and security of workers
4) Social
dialogue and need for adequate
involvement of TUC and her affiliates on
all issues that affect us and our
members
5) On-going
reforms in the petroleum, aviation,
banking and public sectors
6) All forms
of abuses/unfair Labour practices
7) The
implementation of the Pension, workmen
Compensation and similar acts
8) The
implementation of the collective
bargaining agreements
9)
Unprocedural redundancies and wrongful
termination
10) Adherence
to extant labour laws, principles of
equity and international labour
standards in handling labour issues
11) Effective
recognition of the right to freedom of
association and collective bargaining in
all organisations in line with ILO
Conventions 87and 98 ratified by the
Federal Government of Nigeria on 17th
October 1960, Section 40 of the 1999
Constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria and Article 10 of African
Charter of Human and Peoples rights.
This is fundamental because all workers,
whether they are permanent staff, agency
or contract staff of any category and
whether they are working in custom areas
or Free Trade Zones, have the
constitutional and legal right to join a
trade union and bargain collectively.
12) The pursuit
of decent work and
13) Adequate
and proper inspection of factories in
line with the Factories Act
We therefore appeal
for your support; understanding and
cooperation to enable us discharge our
duties to our members proactively in an
atmosphere of industrial peace and
harmony.
4.
Enduring industrial peace and
harmony as a collective responsibility
Sir, our
administration prefers to manage order
rather than crises
and like we said before, we will also do
our best to enthrone and maintain an
atmosphere of Industrial peace and
harmony in Rivers State. We however like
to appeal to all stakeholders in
industrial relations (i.e. labour
Unions, companies/banks managements and
Government) to give more time and
attention to social dialogue, always be
guided by the principles of natural
justice and equity and respect for human
dignity and extant labour laws in their
approach to labour and Industrial
relations matters. This is to foster an
atmosphere of peace and industrial
harmony necessary for increased
production, wealth creation and economic
development.
Specifically, we
would like to request that you appeal
to the employers of labour and
government to be more constructive and
fair in their approach to all issues
that affect labour as a way of
fostering harmony and forestalling
crisis that may snowball from unilateral
and irrational response(s) to labour
issues. It is also our considered view
that management/employers/government
should always carry out critical and
careful appraisal of their intended
plans and actions as any decisions that
is not mindful of proper consultation
and communication may likely suffer
confrontation and setback.
It is
therefore clear that building and
maintaining an atmosphere of industrial
peace and harmony is a collective
responsibility of labour, employers and
government. No one party can achieve an
enduring atmosphere of industrial peace
and harmony without the cooperation of
the others.
5.
Social Dialogue, Equity and
Social Justice fundamental to enduring
atmosphere of industrial peace and
harmony:
As a key workplace
partner, we believe in the principles of
social dialogue and effective
consultation
as important
ingredients for building salubrious and
harmonious relationship as well as in
maintaining healthy balance in our roles
and relationship. We also believe that
the basis of any relationship should be
the respect for the dignity of the human
being. This is because each of us
whether on the side of labour,
management or Government, possesses a
basic dignity that comes from God and as
aptly summed-up by the Catholic Bishops
of England and Wales:
‘’the test therefore for every
institution or policy is whether it
enhances or threatens
human dignity
and in deed human life itself. Policies,
which treat, people as only
economic units, or policies which reduce
people to a passive state of dependency
on welfare, do not do justice to the
dignity of the human person’’
It is therefore important for us to
acknowledge that industrial peace and
harmony has a slender body, the strength
of which is determined by the amount of
justice done to the human dignity in
workplace relationship. Where the
human dignity is treated without respect
and as an economic unit, there is no
gainsaying that any ‘peace’ enjoyed is
only temporary. Industrial peace and
harmony therefore requires the
commitment and deliberate actions of all
parties geared towards the enthronement
of peace and harmony. To this end we
want to state that we are not unmindful
of how some obnoxious laws and
mischievous loopholes in our labour laws
have been exploited by some employers
and institutions to perpetrate injustice
and evil against Nigerian workers.
To this end we would
like to reproduce the words of the
learned professor of law
Prof. Egerton E. Uvieghare
in a paper titled “THE ROLE OF THE
JUDICIARY IN INDUSTRIAL HARMONY”
presented to the 2007 All Nigeria
Judges’ Conference where he observed
that:
‘’ It is obvious
that if the Judiciary is called upon to
administer unjust and obnoxious laws it
cannot be expected and would be unable
to earn the respect which is desired or
it expects in order to engender
industrial harmony. The Fundamental
Objectives and Directive Principles of
State Policy of the Constitution
provides in Section 17(3) that the state
shall direct its policy towards ensuring
that (a) all citizens, without
discrimination on any ground whatsoever,
have the opportunity for securing
adequate means of livelihood as well as
adequate opportunity to secure suitable
employment; (b)
conditions of
work are just and humane; (c)
the health,
safety and welfare of all persons in
employment are safe –guarded and not
endangered or abused; (d)
there is equal pay for equal work
without discrimination on account of
sex, or on any other ground whatsoever’’
We are also not unaware that history is
replete with the struggle and
determination of the human race to fight
oppressive laws and relationships.
Accordingly also, we would like to draw
the attention of your Ministry and the
Federal Government of Nigeria to the
observation by
Jibrin Ibrahim and
Toure Kazah-Toure
that:
‘The development of
democratic culture is dependent on the
existence of a modern state that can
protect the rights of its citizens and
extract duties from them. Modern states
are characterised by the practice of
equity, the rule of law and the search
for legitimacy. The legitimacy of the
state is linked to its capacity to
present itself as a provider of
necessary public goods and more
important, a neutral arbiter that
guarantees the security of all sections
of society. When the state is generally
perceived as serving the particularistic
interests of one group, it starts losing
its legitimacy, and indeed, its
authority. As state capacity declines,
fear of ‘the other’ rises and
inhabitants of the state resort to other
levels of solidarity…’’
It is therefore clear that ‘harmony’ and
industrial ‘peace’ cannot be imposed on
the parties to industrial relations in
any guise whatsoever. It can only be
achieved via social dialogue in an
environment of humane labour laws. This
is so because unjust and obnoxious
labour laws create a serious barrier to
dialogue and ultimately leads to
industrial crises.
It creates a false sense of peace for
the organisations and institutions that
rely solely on such laws as the basis
for industrial relations. It also makes
it difficult for ordinary people to see
the government or the relevant
institutions as a neutral arbiter and
thus creates an environment of doubt as
to whether the government could
reasonably be expected to guarantee the
welfare, security and safety of the
workers who are usually at the receiving
end of such laws. This of course will
give a renewed impetus to solidarity
among the workers as well as create a
bonding effect for the workers’
struggle. History is replete with
examples!
Unjust and obnoxious laws cannot and
should not howsoever be relied upon to
create an enduring atmosphere of
industrial peace and harmony in any
society, ours inclusive.
It is therefore
our earnest desire and expectations
that the laws and government policies in
a constitutional democracy will reflect
the popular will of the people. Such
laws should be the outcome of
consultations with key stakeholders with
a view to addressing their concerns and
carrying them along.
It is also for this reason that we had
always insisted on proper and adequate
consultation, involvement and engagement
of organised labour before passing any
law or coming out with any policy that
will affect or likely to affect the
workers. This is to ensure that such
laws and/or policies adequately address
the concern(s) of workers before they
come into force.
6.
Request for the review of our
labour laws and urgent need to address
the unacceptable level of unemployment
and poverty:
We had thought that with the advent of
constitutional democracy, the National
Assembly would have taking time to
review the labour laws or laws that
affect workers in line with Section
17(3) of the constitution -The
Fundamental Objectives and Directive
Principles of State Policy –‘’which
provides that the State shall direct its
policy towards ensuring that (a) all
citizens, without discrimination on any
ground whatsoever, have the opportunity
for securing adequate means of
livelihood as well as adequate
opportunity to secure suitable
employment; (b) conditions of work are
just and humane; (c) the health, safety
and welfare of all persons in employment
are safe –guarded and not endangered or
abused; (d) there is equal pay for equal
work without discrimination on account
of sex, or on any other ground
whatsoever’’ It
is indeed sad and very unfortunate that
after 10 years of uninterrupted
constitutional democracy Nigeria has not
been able to put in place employment
protection laws or align their labour
laws to international labour standards.
Consequent upon the above, we want to
use this opportunity to appeal to the
Federal Ministry of Labour and
Productivity and the National Assembly
to carryout a critical review of our
labour laws, so as to inter alia, align
our labour laws with the International
labour Standards as well as use the
opportunity to domesticate all the
International labour Conventions already
ratified by Nigeria in line with section
12 of the 1999 constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
It is obvious from
the statistics of the causes of
industrial crises in Nigeria that one
area of our labour laws that is in dire
need of review is the redundancy law.
Another is the absence of employment
protection laws for the so-called
employment without statutory flavour.
As you are aware
there is clearly a great difference
between the legal position on Redundancy
in
Nigeria and that of other countries.
For instance in India, Section 25(F)(c)
of the Indian Industrial Disputes
(Amendment) Act 1957 provides for a
notice of retrenchment to be served on
the state government not less than 21
days before the date of retrenchment and
the courts in India have construed that
requirement as mandatory, and where they
are not complied with, employees
declared redundant in default would be
reinstated with back wages (Workmen of
Thondamuther Trading Co. Ltd Vs
Thondamuther Trading Co. Ltd , Coimbator
1969 II L.L.J 685 Supreme court).
However the case of Nigeria is
different. The Appeal court in Nigeria
have ruled in respect of redundancies
that ’’it is crystal clear that from
section 20(1) of the labour Act that the
only rights conferred on a Trade Union
is merely a right to be informed by the
employer of a redundancy in his
establishment. No sanction is provided
for failure to do so. This section does
not confer a right to sue in default of
the employer notifying the trade union
of a redundancy.’’ Edozien JCA in
National Union of Hotels and Personal
Services Workers Vs. Imo Concorde Hotels
Limited (1994 NWLR Pt. 320). This
further shows the unfortunate position
of a retrenched/redundant worker in
Nigeria and the inadequacies of our
labour laws. The truth again is that the
Nigerian worker is not in any way
protected against redundancy and
retrenchment.
The combined
effect of the absence of employment
protection laws and the inadequacies in
our redundancy laws in an atmosphere of
terrible unemployment as we have in
Nigeria can only be imagined.
Accordingly, we
therefore call on the Federal Ministry
of labour and Productivity and the
National Assembly to review the labour
laws in Nigeria and fix the
mischievous loopholes/inadequacies that
has been used to perpetuate injustice in
employment relations. We also appeal
to the Federal Ministry of Labour and
Productivity to ensure that the
Federal Government of
Nigeria ratifies ILO
Convention 158
Concerning Termination of Employment at
the Initiative of the Employer which
came into force on 3rd November 1985 and
domesticate or pass it into law in line
with Section 12 of the 1999
Constitution. This will provide some
succour to employees whose employments
do not have statutory flavour.
Furthermore
we request the Federal government to
address the problems of the power sector
and other issues that have led to the
relocation of companies from
Nigeria to neighbouring countries like
Ghana.
As we speak more companies are
planning to leave our country, not
because they want to leave but because
the situation in the country is making
it very difficult for them to operate.
It is difficult for a country that
parades our level of unemployment and
without any demonstrable evidence of
doing anything to address it to raise
her head high in the assembly of Nations
even if mass poverty and unemployment is
a deliberate policy of such a country.
7.
Request for the creation of the
Port Harcourt Division of the National
Industrial Court
As you are aware,
Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers
State is the industrial nerve centre of
Niger Delta and the oil capital of
Nigeria. It is no doubt a beehive of
industrial activities and one of the
major industrial cities in Nigeria. We
have however watched with consternation
the growth of the National Industrial
Court from one Division in
Lagos
to also having
divisions in
Abuja, Enugu, Kano,
Calabar, Ibadan, Jos and Maiduguri.
Regrettably
there is no presence of the
National Industrial Court in Rivers
State. IT IS IN DEED VERY WORRISOME THAT
PORT HARCOURT IS THE ONLY MAJOR
INDUSTRIAL CITY IN NIGERIA WITHOUT THE
PRESENCE OF THE NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL
COURT. The
absence of the National Industrial Court
in Rivers State imposes serious
additional costs to aggrieved workers
and their labour Unions in Rivers State
in the pursuit of justice and is a
serious impediment to justice especially
considering the level of industrial
activities in Rivers State. We
therefore appeal to the Federal Ministry
of Labour and Productivity and the
President of the National Industrial
Court Hon. Justice Babatunde Adeniran
Adejumo to quickly create the Port
Harcourt Division of the National
Industrial Court as this will better
serve the cause of justice as well
as ameliorate the sufferings of the
aggrieved workers and their labour
unions who despite their very limited
resources have to shuttle between
Calabar,Enugu,Lagos,Abuja,Jos etc to
seek justice.
8.
Request for the inclusion of Port
Harcourt as one of the locations for the
training programmes of the Michael
Imoudo National Institute for Labour
Studies (MINILS)
Another area we need
your assistance is in the location of
the training programme of the Michael
Imoudo National Institute for Labour
Studies (MINILS). A critical review
of their programme for year 2010 for
instance indicates that Rivers State
with all its potentials and industrial
activities is completely left out. We
believe that the mission of the MINILS
(which is -Building the capacity of
workers, employers and Government
officials in Labour and Industrial
Relations through Training, Research,
Education and Inter-Institutional
linkages…) will be better achieved with
the inclusion of Port Harcourt as one of
the centres for her training programmes.
We therefore request the Federal
Ministry of Labour and Productivity to
engage the
MINILS to
accommodate Rivers State and the
industrial city of Port Harcourt in her
training programmes.
9.
Conclusion
Once again, we thank
you and your team for this opportunity.
We will continue to collaborate and
partner with your team for the
enthronement of an enduring industrial
peace and harmony in Rivers State. It is
therefore our earnest desire that this
meeting will herald a new partnership
between your team and my team with a
view to enhancing consultation,
communication and dialogue between the
TUC and her affiliates in Rivers State
and the Federal Ministry of Labour and
Productivity.
We wish our State
Controller Federal Ministry of Labour
and Productivity and his entire team the
best in the task ahead.
BEING
AN ADDRESS BY COMRADE
HYGINUS CHIKA ONUEGBU (FCA) STATE
CHAIRMAN TRADE UNION CONGRESS OF NIGERIA
(TUC) RIVERS STATE COUNCIL DURING THE
COURTESY CALL ON THE STATE CONTROLLER
FEDERAL MINISTRY OF LABOUR AND
PRODUCTIVITY RIVERS STATE ON FRIDAY
FEBRUARY 5 2010
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