Confab:NLC,TUC Kick Against Migration of Labour Matters to Concurrent List

Nigeria’s labour movement has raised alarm over an attempt to kill unionism in the country.Abdulwahed Omar,president ,Nigeria Labour Congress and Comrade Bobboi Bala Kaigama, president,Trade Union Congress who addressed journalists today in Abuja described as inexplicable, the migration of labour matter to the concurrent list by the national conference committee on devolution of power.
The labour leaders a said “Our attention has been drawn to the report credited to the Chairman of the Committee on Devolution of Power at the on-going National Conference and former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Obong Victor Attah, to the effect that the Committee, has for inexplicable reasons, elected to transfer all Labour matters from the Exclusive Legislative list to the Concurrent list. This is contrary to the recommendation of the Committee on Civil Society, Labour and Sports that is specifically assigned to deliberate on Labour matters at the National Conference. As you are no doubt aware, the Committee on Civil Society, Labour, and Sports have in tandem with the aspiration of the Trade Union movement in the country, recommended that Labour and other related issues should be retained in the Exclusive Legislative list. We commend the Committee for carrying out the wishes of the Nigerian people in this regard.
“It is on record, gentlemen of the press, that when the Senate in the process of amending the Constitution last year, toyed with the idea of removing wages and other Labour related matters from the Exclusive Legislative list to the Concurrent list, the Trade Unions and other progressive organisations including the Nigerian populace kicked against the move. The House of Representatives on its part sided with the Nigerian people on the issue by agreeing to retain wages and other Labour related issues in the Exclusive Legislative List.
The statement said “Thus by trying to reopen the issue of Labour and other related matters being removed from the Exclusive Legislative list to the Concurrent list, many Nigerians have started to wonder whether members of the Attah Committee live outside the Nigerian Society because the issue of Labour being retained in the Exclusive Legislative list was widely publicized during the Constitutional Amendment exercise by the National Assembly last year. Or could it be that the members of the Committee are fixated and impervious to popular opinion?
“It is indeed surprising that a former State Governor, who many have hitherto regarded as a Statesman, could descend so low as to resort to vendetta because a local Union in his State once went on sympathy strike over National issue.
“Is the Committee aware that Nigeria is a signatory to Convention 87 of 1948 of the ILO on Freedom of Association and Right to Organise and Convention 98 of 1949 on Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining?
“ If National Unions are killed in Nigeria, how will the country continue to participate in ILO Tripartite Consultation (International Labour Standards) under Convention 144 of 1976? Will the ILO invite hundreds of Unions that will emerge in Nigeria into its Tripartite Committee? Indeed, can the country afford to be ridiculed before the International Community because a former State Governor is obsessed with revenge?
“All over the World whether in the United States, Britain, France, Australia, Brazil, Russia, Venezuela, South Africa, Ghana, Cameroun, etc, Trade Unions are organized nationally. What will these revisionists gain when Nigeria retreats to a chaotic regime whereby states will start legislating on labour issues thereby returning the country into the dark ages.
“It is true that in United States of America, minimum wage is in both federal and state legislature but states can only set standards higher than the National Minimum Wage and not lower. That is why we have federal department of labour as a sole regulator of labour standards and issues in the United States. In the case of Russia and other federations, their constitution has elevated labour issues and labour standards to the pedestal of human right issues which can only be legislated upon by the federal government. Article 37 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation stipulates “that each citizen has the right to work in an environment that meets occupational safety and health requirements, to remuneration for work that is paid without any discrimination at a rate that is not less than THE MINIMUM ESTABLISHED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, (emphasis ours) and to be protected from unemployment”. These are best practices in the world that should be emulated. BUT NOT NIGERIA.
They asked “Does anyone know that when states are allowed to set labour standards and regulate labour relations, the competition to attract location of economic activities can take the undesirable mode of competitively lowering of labour standards, resulting in a race to the bottom which in the long-run hurts the whole economy. It is to avoid situations like this that central governments legislate on income tax, companies’ income tax and labour relations. To do otherwise is to create fragmented economies within the national economy which can undermine overall economic development of the nation.
“It is high time we called to order politicians that are hell-bent on drawing the country backwards through ideas that have no meaning within the context of modern day administration. We have had enough of approbating and reprobating on sensitive national issues, a style that has led us nowhere. This is the time to move forward by strengthening all our institutions that have for long fostered National Unity and cohesion. Those who have contributed to the rot of the past that has brought the country to the sorry state where it is today should not be allowed to mislead us again into taking retrogressive steps that may eventually lead the country into disintegration.
“The Governors and other political office holders have their salaries fixed nationally by revenue mobilization, allocation and fiscal commission (a kind of minimum wage for political holders) and yet pushing for the denial of minimum wage for workers. What a tragic irony!