LEADERS of United Labour Congress of Nigeria, ULC, few days ago met in Lagos to review the socio-economic and political situations in the country as they affect the Nigerian workers and masses, and concluded that workers an indeed the Nigerian masses have been abused, denied, deprived, humiliated, persecuted, harassed and abandoned.

FEDERAL Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s pensioners have threatened mass action over their unpaid pensions and other entitlements for the past six years. This is as the National Pension Commission, PenCom, is fuming over ongoing moves to exclude paramilitary organisations including the police from the Contributory Pension Scheme, CPS.

NIGERIAN Labour Congress, NLC, has pleaded with the Kano State government to pay pensioners their backlog of unpaid benefits, lamenting that the state government owed over N11.2 billion of gratuities, death benefits and pension arrears.

WORKERS of Charles Mekwunye $ Co, Chambers, have continued to savour recent legal victory at Supreme Court over the finality of judgement of the National Industrial Court, NIC.

LEADERSHIP of the National Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE has warned state governors not to force the union into declaring industrial action in the country by not utilizing the recent Paris Club refund to offset all backlog of its members salaries.

I have always said that respect is the basis for any civilized relationship either between workers and employees or between government and ordinary man in the street. One of the basic requirements of respect is by promising and fulfilling. We agreed that minimum wage will be reviewed every five years, that is the understanding. For goodness sake, at least, let us have a minimum wage committee that will try to explain or make some adjustments so that the workforce will believe that they are not being taking for granted.

ORGANISED Labour agitation for a new national minimum wage has received a boost from unexpected quarters where many have argued that a new minimum wage is not feasible at this time of economic recession. But in an interview with Labour Vanguard, a renowned industrial relations expert and Group Deputy Managing Director, Kewalram Chanrai Group, Mr. Victor Eburajolo, believes the Nigerian economy stands to benefit more from the new wage, contending that Organised Labour is not doing enough to push for an upward review of the national minimum wage.

Human capacity development is the key to any meaningful development irrespective of where you are in the world

As country, we must have a policy that the employer, the worker and the government must key into it

There will be inflow of technical assistance on varying specialised areas especially labour laws, finance, production, skill acquisition, job creation, general labour administration