Nigeria’s organized labor will mobilize action against state governments and other employers of labor using the COVID-19 pandemic as a ploy to sack workers and undermine their rights, a labor union said late Wednesday.
President of the Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC) Ayuba Wabba, who made this known to reporters in Abuja, the nation’s capital, said the organized labor and its allies would tackle any infraction on workers’ rights.
The organized labor is worried at the trend whereby workers are being used as scapegoats for the economic challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, he added.
“We cannot fold our hands and people continue to undermine our laws and rights of workers and we continue to lament,” Wabba told reporters.
“In proceeding with this action, we thought that we should consult with our organs so that we will decide how to deal with the fundamental issues affecting Nigerian workers at the most moment,” he said.
Wabba added that the labor movement had recently intervened in disputes in the aviation sector, banking sector, manufacturing industry, and others that had tried to sack workers and trample on their rights.
He said such industries did so in the guise of responding to challenges of COVID-19 without recourse to due process of law and collective dialogue.
The NLC president said a working committee meeting would allow the labor organization to prioritize its engagements and decode areas to tackle first.
