Author: National Record

“We commend this united strike and urge that the unions and associations involved not to relent until all demands are met. Should the 7-day [warning strike] expire without any serious and concrete effort by the state government to meet the demands, it should be escalated to a full-blown strike with the active solidarity and support of the Nigeria Labour Congress NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the United Labour Congress (ULC). This is important to teach the rabidly anti-worker government of Kaduna state led by Mallam El-Rufai a lesson.

“Wages are binding contracts which cannot be unilaterally or arbitrarily reviewed. It is unfortunate that while some states are giving incentives to workers at this time of grave health emergency, in line with global trend, Kaduna State is taking away from workers and pensioners. This is nothing but a full-blown industrial tyranny,” the Labour-Civil Society Situation Room contended.

“The COVID-19 economic crisis is hitting young people – especially women – harder and faster than any other group. If we do not take significant and immediate action to improve their situation, the legacy of the virus could be with us for decades. If their talent and energy is side-lined by a lack of opportunity or skills it will damage all our futures and make it much more difficult to re-build a better, post-COVID economy.”

For the current rulership (not leaders) in the African Union and for the African working class and poor masses in the Pan-African world, celebrating the African Liberation Day (ALD), moreso with the hopeless state of all the nation-states should be a moment to rethink, re-strategise and re-affirm our commitment to the visions, philosophical directions and practical examples articulated and demonstrated by Nkrumah, Cabral and Commandante Fidel.

Oye has turned all rights to privileges, he does whatever he likes without recourse to the constitution, remittance of check off dues is statutory and payment of rebate is also statutory, but Oye has proven to us that it is only remittance of check-off that is statutory but payment of rebate is a privilege. All State Councils still have unpaid 2017 rebate, not to talk of 2020 rebate. We can all see that with Oye, we have entered one chance.

From the national executives to the shop floor members, there seems to be a great conspiracy of silence even when things are falling apart. Everyone decides to go mute to avoid the consequences of speaking. That is why I decided to the theme of messianic complex and how it is affecting us in NUFBTE.

While arguing that the enquiry infringes on the fundamental human rights of Comrade Oyeleke, Abimbola stated that if the union members are aggrieved, the best option available to them or anybody is to “approach the court.” He asked National Record if it was aware that “the Ministry of Labour and Productivity [sic] has an overriding supervisory role over the affairs of all unions in Nigeria,” and that if people are aggrieved, they can make a petition to the minister or approach the National Industrial Court rather than “defaming him [Comrade Oyelekan] and harassing him here and there.”

In the light of the furore, Decree 25 of 1989 was ostensibly believed to have been promulgated to de-register the CEIMSU by amending section eleven (11) of Decree 31 of 1973 to include the staff of these establishments in the list of government establishments precluded from organising into a trade union.

As it stands, the shareholder-oriented paradigm has demonstrated capability as an instrument for perpetrating wage theft therefore widening income equality. The unions must reinvent their strategies and demands; the era of bread and butter negotiation must give space to a more robust agitation on why workers must have a voice on the board. The assumed Iron Gate between labor and capital is no longer fashionable and workers must seize the ugly opportunity presented by COVID-19 to break the barrier and get seats on the boards.

“Femi Falana since his student days has been in the fore front of the crusade for the emancipation of the Nigerian people. As a student, even before he became a lawyer, Femi Falana was in the habit of bailing fellow student union activists who got arrested by the State.”