THE Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insusrance and Financial Institutions, ASSBIFI, and the disengaged staff of the Mainstreet Bank are trading words over the severance benefits of the ex-bankers.

THE two unions in the nation’s construction industry; National Union of Civil Engineering Construction, Furniture and Wood Workers, NUCECFWW, and Construction and Civil Engineering Senior Staff Association, CCESSA, few days ago raised alarm over jobs insecurity, lamenting that no fewer than 100,000 workers had been sacked by Multi-National Corporations, MNCs, and indigenous contractors over government refusal to pay for completed and certified projects.

TRADE Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, has kicked against perceived clandestine moves by the State Governors to ensure that labour is removed from the exclusive list of constitution.

NIGERIA Labour Congress, NLC, has called for capital punishment for perpetrators of pension fund fraud, saying “Pension is the life line of the pensioner and any assault on this is clearly a capital offence that equals the taking of the pensioners’ life.”

The rising profile of forced labour and human trafficking in Nigeria and other parts of the globe where no fewer than 20.9 million people are in forced labour situations, yielding perpetrators an estimated 32.6 Billion Dollars profits yearly is a serious concern to every decent person or group.

NATIONAL Pension Commission, PenCom, has assured contributors of the Contributory Pension Scheme, whose Pension Administrators, PFAs, failed to meet the N1billion new N1billion minimum capital base of their safety of their fund.

COMRADE Richard Gbande is the Executive Chairman of Benue State Local Government Service Commission, BSLGSC. In this interview with Labour Vanguard, he spoke on government/labour relationship, among others.

FOR the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, workers’ missing pension fund known as “Superannuation Fund”, it has become one controversy after another and in fact, a case of the more you look, the less you see.

THE National Pension Commission, PenCom, has appealed appealed against the judgment of the Abuja High Court setting aside its takeover of the Board and Management of the First Guarantee Pension Limited, FGPL.

NIGERIA Employers’ Consultative Association, NECA, and International Labour Organisation , ILO’s Certified Masters Trainers have called on the Federal Government to take necessary action against the activities of ILO and the United Nations Development Programmes, UNDP for preferring expatriates from South Africa and Zimbabwe rather than Nigerian certified ILO Master Trainers to train young farmers in Ekiti state.