Labour rejects pay rise for political office holders

THE Organised Labour has rejected plans by the Revenue and Mobilization Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, to review upward the wages of the political office holders, instead  for downward review of their emoluments.

President of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Ayuba Wabba, who spoke yesterday in Lagos, while giving a goodwill message at the first National Labour Adjudication forum, with the theme,  “Labour Adjudication in Nigeria: The Present and the Future” organised by the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association, NECA, asked for upward review of salaries of judges in the country.

While urging NECA to brace up for the challenges of the new world of work, occasioned by  COVID-19, Wabba noted that “employers, government and workers must work together to enjoy harmonious relationship. 

''A decent work is a way to ensure harmonious relationship. The trio must work together for the survival of businesses. If workers are working without earning a living there will be problem and if business is not making profit, it will generate problems.” 

He lamented the hardship Nigerian workers and other Nigerians were going through at present, faulting the moves to increase the wags of political officeholders.

“A few days ago, when we were requested for a submission when the Revenue and Mobilisation Fiscal Commission wants to review the earnings of political office holders, we warned them and told them that they are part of the problem we are in today.  

''In 2008, they reviewed the earnings of political office holders and that brought about the agitations and quarrels across the country. Some of them (political office holders) have fleet of cars and we take care of them with our taxes. 

In his welcome address, President of NECA, Segun Adeniyi, called for sustained industrial peace, saying Industrial peace was the key to national development.

Adeniyi, who lamented that without industrial peace, nothing could be achieved, regretted that Nigeria had had its fair share of industrial unrest in recent times.

He stressed:  “We must find a common ground to ensure industrial harmony. With little compromise, we can achieve much.”

The NECA boss added that the quest for industrial harmony was a collective responsibility. 

In his keynote address, President of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria, NICN, Justice Benedict Kanyip, in a  95-page presentation, said:  “As we now ruminate on labour adjudication, we must be reminded that the talk today is mainly about the identity crisis of labour law and the extravagant individualism of the common law.

''There is the debate as to the choice between individuation of labour rights (employment law) or their collectivization (labour law). 

“As would have been seen in all I have said so far, the crisis of labour law is as succinctly depicted by Sandra Fredman who couched the challenges of labour law in terms of conceptions of the notion of worker, the melting boundary between employment and unemployment with job insecurity elevated into a market asset.

''All of this point to the importance of ensuring that labour law is facilitative of collective bargaining and social dialogue, rather than simply providing for individual rights.

“It is within this context that I must state that a quiet revolution regarding labour jurisprudence in the country is currently going on at the NICN since the promulgation of the Third Alteration to the 1999 Constitution. And it is this that will shape labour adjudication in the country now and in the future.”

Culled from Vanguard