By VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG
THE Theme of today’s May Day celebration in Nigeria, “Right to work, Food and Education: Panacea to Insecurity”, would not have come at a better time. But beyond speeches and rallies, there is growing frustration among workers that labour leaders in the country are fast abandoning them to their fate in abuses and victimisation by employers.

Workers during an industrial action.

From the Financial sector,  the Manufacturing sector and Transport to others, the story is the same. The issue of denials of rights, unfair labour practices especially casualisation of workers and refusal to allow workers to join union of their choice as enshrined in Section 40 of the 1999 constitution are now in vogue in most places of work.

In all these sectors, cases of abuses and victimization of workers who show the slightest idea of joining the union abound.

Unscrupulous employers and management increasingly because of the greed for profit maximization are now resorting to unfair labour practices and denial of rights to deal with perceived unfavourable business environment.

In the banking sector, close to 10, 000 workers have lost their jobs in the last one year due to an ending reforms in  where the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, is said to have indirecty given the banks  to drastically cut down the size of their staff.

Today, former workers of Intercontinental Bank Plc, acquired by Access Bank Plc, who were recently sacked by the management of Access bank, are alleging one denial or the other. The same thing is said to be happening to ex-employees of Oceanic International Bank Plc, acquired by Eco Transnational International Bank. In most cases, these banks either refuse workers the right to belong to union or put in place fronts of management as union leaders.

Sadly, former workers of the Union Bank of Nigeria, UBN, Plc, rationalized about ten years ago have been battling to get the bank to pay their alleged unpaid benefits and other compensations.

In these banks, the current trend is to engage un-pensionable employees who fall under contract workers, outsourced staff and outright casual workers . These categories of workers are the most abused, denied and dehumanized.

If what is happening in the financial sector is disturbing, the level of unfair labour practices in the manufacturing sector is mind boggling. In this sector, it is believed that it is not just unfair labour practices that take place, but slave labour. Investigation has revealed that manufacturing sector  harbours  the worst form of unfair labour practices and indecent employment policies. Workers are not only denied the right to freedom of association, but those identified as leading agitation for unionism are sacked at will without compensation.

In all these, organised labour and its leaders appear to have given up as workers suffer from all forms of abuses and rights denials from employers.

Though the leaders of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, had after their election over a year ago, said they were renewing anti-casualisation campaign that gained prominence under the presidency of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and even reconstituted the anti-casualisation committee, nothing concrete has taken place since then while workers are increasingly being abused and rights denied them on daily basis.