ORGANISED Labour in Adamawa State, has condemned the move by the state House of Assembly to pass a bill seeking to prohibit strikes by essential service workers into law.

Speaking in Yola, the state chairman of the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, NANNM, Comrade Adamu Watu, said the plan by the Adamawa lawmakers was unjustifiable.

Meanwhile, the bill which is being sponsored by Alhaji Hassan Kaigama (PDP-Maiha), has passed through second reading and referred to the House Committee on Labour.

The committee is expected to conduct a public hearing on the matter and submit a report within one month.

The bill seeks to give the state governor the powers to proscribe any trade union or association of workers that engages in acts deemed to have disrupted the economy or obstructed the smooth running of any essential service in the state.

The bills seeks to ban traffic warders, health workers, staffers of revenue service, and fire service workers from organising or participating in strikes when passed into law.

It also seeks to outlaw any form of picketing prior to the decision of the National Industrial Court.

It prescribes six months imprisonment or N250, 000 fines, or both for any employee who takes part in, or organises an industrial action.

Watu, however, said that the association would resist the law, explaining that strikes were legal and that labour matters were in the concurrent list of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He added that only the National Assembly had the power to legislate on it.

“I think they are not doing justice. Moreover, it is not within their own powers as per the constitution, and I am assuring you that even the NLC at the state level are pursuing this issue.“If they pass it into law it will not see the light of the day. It will not be respected.”

Similarly, the state chairman of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria TUC , Comrade Musa Abbas, said the state lawmakers had no powers to enact a law banning unionism.

“The issue of labour is on the concurrent list of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is only the federal legislatures that have the right to make laws regarding labour issues. So, when the state assembly comes into this issue of labour I see it as not their responsibility to make laws regarding labour.”