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By Bimbola Oyesola, [email protected]
The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has reiterated the importance for government as well as other stakeholders to respect organised labour in Nigeria as a path to fostering harmonious industrial relations.
Director-general of the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association, Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, in an interview with Daily Sun on the incessant disputes between government and labour resulting in threats of strike and other industrial actions, noted that crucial institutions like the Industry Arbitration Panel (IAP) and the National Industrial Court (NIC), which have been specifically established to address and resolve disputes within the industrial sector, were not being respected.
He reasoned that a healthy industrial harmony would not be achievable without individuals making a definitive commitment to ensuring that the system works.
He further urged the judicious implementation of laid down policies and guidelines that establishes clear guidelines and principles for harmonious labour relations.
In addition following guidelines, he stated that, “There is urgent need for improved capacity building. There is a paucity of knowledge and understanding of our roles and our responsibilities. We must be deliberate about it at all levels. Labour must continue to train and retrain is leadership. The same goes for employers.
“The Federal Minister of Labour also must be twice active in the context of training and retraining its officers because if the Ministry must be the party to adjudicate between organized labour and government, then their knowledge base should be more than those that they are to manage. So we must deliberately, leveraging on the support and the capacity that the International Labour Organization (ILO) has given us in time past. I will continue to advocate training for social partners,” Oyerinde stated.
This is even as he called for the utilization of support and capacity provided by the Michael Iwodu Institute of Labour Studies as valuable resources for comprehensive training in the realm of social contracts.
Oyerinde commended the federal government’s recent interventions at alleviating the plight of Nigerians which was contained in the Memorandum of Understanding with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC).
The intervention measures, though temporary, include the suspension of Value Added Tax (VAT) on diesel for six months, a wage award of N35,000 to government workers pending a new minimum wage agreement and facilitating the provision of CNG buses to ease transportation burden for Nigerians, among others. He however stressed that the government must do more.
Likewise, he commended the NLC for suspending the nationwide strike and urged that the organised labour follow the path of social dialogue in protecting the interest of workers and other citizens.
