Labour calls for stiffer sanctions against violators of workers’ rights

The Nigerian Labour Congress on Monday urged the International Labour Organisation to impose stiffer sanctions against violators of workers’ right to free association.

The Congress also called for its repositioning to enable it serve as a veritable platform for workers’ mobilisations across the world.

The Secretary-General of NLC, Mr. John Odah, made the calls in Abuja at the 90th anniversary of the ILO held in Abuja.

Odah, while calling for the strategic repositioning of ILO to enable it act decisively against regimes that constituted affront on the right of workers worldwide, bemoaned the weak enforcement mechanism of the organisation which had been mild on the violators of workers’ rights.

At the occasion, which was also meant to mark the 50th anniversary of ILO in Nigeria, the Secretary General urged the organisation not to derail from the principles of the founding fathers, which were anchored on social justice and the defence of workers’ rights

He said, “We also call on ILO to be guided by its founding principles for the purpose of protecting its image as a regulatory institution that seeks to promote social justice and the defence of the dignity of human being.”

Odah said that ILO should be more concerned about the plight of workers across the globe, particularly workers within the African continent, saying that it was through that that the dreams of the founding fathers could be sustained.

According to him, some of the developments that weakened the power of the organisation in its bid to continually be at the vanguard of good working condition for workers included, globalisation, which is changing the economic and political landscape of the world.

Others, he explained, included, the numerous state public sector reforms and ant-labour legislations, aimed at job reduction and weakening of labour solidarity and the flexibility in the working environment leading to outsourcing and casualisation.

In his own address, the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode, said that the 50 years of existence of ILO in Nigeria helped to reveal that the best way out of poverty in Africa was decent work.

He attributed the prevalence of poverty in Africa to policy inconsistency and uncoordinated strategies.