Bimbola Oyesola
Organised Labour yesterday reiterated that the employers of labour have no reason to sack workers yet due to the ravaging COVID-19.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) stated that moreso when the Federal Government has stimulus package to support businesses in the country.
The NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, and his TUC counterpart, Quadri Olaleye, in a report from the Labour-Civil Society Situation Room, called on employers of labour to stop the massive layoff of workers and salary reduction.
The two labour centres, however, charged the Federal Government to ensure that only employers who keep and do not slash salary receive the stimulus.
“We demand that the economic stimulus package by government target employers who have demonstrated iron-clad commitment to keep jobs, retain existing salaries and expand production,” the report said.
The organised Labour said this is the time to re-think the nation’s economic strategy.
It stated: “We posit that the current economic crisis which has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic is as a result of gross mismanagement of the Nigerian economy by successive governments.
The continuous importation of refined petroleum products as a result of the neglect of our oil refineries, perennial distortions in our trade balance, huge patronage of foreign goods and services including medical tourism especially by public officials, dearth of a national development blueprint and appetite and widespread official corruption has brought us to this cauldron.”
Both the Labour leaders emphasized that to navigate out of the mess, Nigeria would need a surgical socio-economic paradigm shift
It added:“In line with our call for a paradigm shift in the management of our resources and the economy, we re-echo our earlier calls for an urgent national conversation for an immediate resuscitation of our four comatose refineries.
“We also insist that Nigerians are not ready to bear yet again further costs of the clear ineptitude, policy failures and outright corruption of public officials whether in the petroleum sector or with regards to the so-called cost reflective adjustment of electricity tariff.”
The two Labour centres equally called for strategic action and synergy by the federal and sub-national governments on a scale of immediate, short term and long-term responses to the fallout of the Covid-19 challenge.