By Victor Ahiuma-Young

TRADE Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, yesterday, berated the employers’ body in the country; Nigeria Employers Consultative Association, NECA, for promoting perceived primitive policy of slave labour and urged it to embrace international labour best practices, to halt increasing confrontation with organised labour.

TUC, in a statement by its President, Bobboi Bala Kaigama, claimed NECA had the worst record in Africa of enslaving workers in the private sector by not providing conducive working environment, encouraging casualization, and payment of peanuts as wages, leading to picketing of many NECA members by the unions.

Kaigama was reacting to a statement credited to NECA Director-General, Mr. Olusegun Oshinowo, where he was quoted as saying the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment was ineffective by allowing unions to be collecting check-off dues and thereafter start calling out members on strike.

Kaigama urged NECA hierarchy  to familiarize itself with the historical development of Nigerian trade union movement and the evolution of automatic check-off dues.

He recalled that the main reason for the 1978 restructuring of the trade unions was to make them formidable and financially viable in line with the recommendation of Michael Abiodun Committee.

According to the statement: “Prior to the restructuring, the trade unions in Nigeria depended largely on donations from foreign labour centres and political parties in the country and these posed grave national security challenges. It was to check this threat and ensure that trade unions are financially independent that the then military regime of General Olusegun Obasanjo accepted the recommendation of Michael Abiodun Panel that the trade unions should be granted automatic check-off dues.”

Continuing, TUC argued that since the enactment of Decree 22 of 1978 that gave effect to the present trade unions, including NECA, there had been a great deal of stability in the trade union movement with its attendant positive impact on the economy.

It claimed that in the civilized worlds of America, Europe, and Asia, trade unions had the right to embark on strike to drive home their demands, saying: “At any rate, if Oshinowo and others in NECA have engaged in international labour best practices by paying living wage, providing conducive working environment, stop casualization of workers, etc, trade unions in the private sector will not be embarking on strikes.”