THE National Union of Chemical, Footwear Rubber Leather and Non-Metallic Product Employees (NUCFRLANMPE) has appealed to the federal government against any plan to increase the price of electricity or petrol to avert further crisis in the economy.
The President of the union, Comrade Babatunde Olatunji, made the appeal at its ongoing Annual Industrial Relations seminar of the union in Ibadan, which is holding under the theme, “Socio-economic Crises and COVID-19 Pandemic: Issues, Challenges and Way Forward.”
Comrade Olatunji argued that increasing electricity tariff or petrol price is a wrong step as he stated that organised labour will do everything within its power to resist it.
He decried the current low power supply capacity of the country, which he said stands at in at 4,000 megawatts for a population of about 200 million, compared to South Africa with 58,000 megawatts but with a 50-million population. “Industrialisation cannot take place in the absence of power. Inadequate infrastructure like bad road network is also a challenge. From the source of raw material to the market areas is dilapidated, the roads network are no longer motorable,” he said.
Comrade Olatunji said government at all levels need to make the manufacturing sector to thrive by giving attention to factors required to promote industrialisation. “Government should ensure adequate power, security of lives and properties as well as regulate multiple taxation and charges to allow manufacturing companies survive, thus promote Gross Domestic Products in the country,” he said.
The labour leader further said that the socio-economic crises engendered by the Covid-19 pandemic impacted negatively on industrial relations evidenced in high number of job losses arising from redundancy and factory closures.
He said that the management of some organisations, in a bid to maximise profit, make staff to work for more than eight hours without overtime payment while many permanent employment are converted to casual.
Comrade Olatunji called on the management of organisations to treat all workers with dignity whether casual or permanent employees as enshrined in ILO conventions, particularly on workers right to form or join unions of their choice irrespective of their status.
