By Victor Ahiuma-Young

Increasingly, workers are being made by employers to bear the brunt of the socio-economic difficulties and the negative effects of government’s policies.  

Consequently, workers now risk unpaid wages, delayed wages, short payment of wages, extended work hours without pay, redundancy, retrenchment, casualisation, contract staffing, outsourcing, de-unionisation , among other forms of anti-labour practices.

This issue of unfair labour practices was one of the highlights of the 31st Annual Nationwide Industrial Relations Seminar of National Union of Chemical, Footwear, Rubber, Leather and Non-Metallic Products Employees, NUCFRLANMPE, held at ancient city of Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State.

Besides members of the union from all over the country, participants especially on the opening day also included government officials, private sector employers, and industrial relations practitioners among others.

The theme of the five day seminar was ‘’Social Dialogue as a Vehicle for Promoting Decent Work and Industrial Harmony.”

Welcoming guests and delegates, President of NUCFLRANMPE, Babatunde ‘Goke Olatunji, lamented the turbulence facing the manufacturing sector particularly including the Chemical and Non-metallic products, as well as the nation’s economy generally.

He listed some of  the challenges to include unstable power supply, high cost of diesel and gas,    multiple taxation, bad roads network, insecurity, the recent removal of subsidy on the Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, commonly known as Petrol and difficulty in accessing foreign exchange, FX.

According to him, presently, the interest rate stands at double digit which is very discouraging to investment and constituting an obstruction to manufacturing sector’s growth. In the same vein, inflationary trend has gone beyond bearable limit impacting negatively on the quality of life of both corporate organisations and the citizens.

Consequences of harsh policies

“These challenges are having negative consequences on Industrial Relations with evolving strange practices constituting huge threat to industrial harmony between the employers and employees.  One of these effects is job losses arising from redundancies and factories closures.

“Another effect is the slashing in salaries and other benefits of workers. Some management have deepened the strange practices through outsourcing and contract staffing which were odd to normal employment practices in desperate efforts to break-even.  We are witnessing a practice where workers in some factories work beyond normal eight hours per day without over-time payment. We urge the employers’ body to address this trend to avoid unrest. If workers must work more than eight hours, they must be paid overtime. We do not want to make the matter public. We want to use this avenue to call on the employers’ federation to address the issue urgently and call the affected management to order. The same goes to the cases of outrageous targets being set for workers thereby making the work indecent. 

ILO conventions

“As we strive to sustain partners in progress by inculcating good work ethics in our members towards increasing productivity, we equally request the management to support the Union by adopting decent work  practices and policies.

“The right to form or join the Union is captured in the section 40 of 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria while International Labour Organisation, ILO, Convention 87 and 98 also speak volumes of right to organize and collective bargaining respectively. The issue of having unionised workers and ununionised workers together in the same factory must be discontinued forthwith. 

“We appeal to CANMPEF to advise its members appropriately and end this practice in the interest of industrial peace for the employers caught in this ugly web.”