LABOUR HAILS MINISTER OF LABOUR AND EMPLOYMENT ON PROPOSED STAKEHOLDERS’ SUMMIT OVER MASS RETRENCHMENT IN THE BANKING SECTOR

Organised labour has said it was in order that the Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator (Dr.) Chris Ngige intervened to save jobs with a view of ensuring job retention in the banking sector.

A member of the National Executive Council of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Chairman, IndustriALL Global Union Sub Saharan Africa, Comrade Issa Aremu, mni in a statement  said Minister’s intervention was consistent with the mandate of the Ministry of Labour to promote productive employment policies and programmes for employment generation.


He also decried the “negative unhelpful” reaction of the Director General of the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) Mr. Segun Oshinowo to the legitimate directive of the Federal Government to banks and other financial institutions to suspend further retrenchment of workers pending the proposed stakeholder’s summit.  The unionist observed that employers of labour who often depend on government for favourable government policies for businesses to thrive cannot “cry foul” when the same government tries to intervene to create favourable atmosphere for industrial fairness and industrial harmony.

According to him, "at the best of economic times, it was an open knowledge that the banking sector has always been “a haven” for gross violations of Nigerian labour laws and ILO conventions on freedom of association and collective bargaining. “Most banks” he said “thrive on precarious work treating workers as slaves.”

He charged NECA which he hailed as “the best Employers’ Association in Africa” to promote industrial relations in the banks not to dogmatically defend bad practices from some of their members. 

Aremu who is also Secretary General of the Textile Workers’ Union said NECA as an active participant in ILO cannot be celebrating “throw-away” labour force as solution to corporate mismanagement and corporate corruption in some banks.

Comrade Aremu commended Dr. Chris Ngige for his sensitivity to the plight of the workers in the banking and financial sector, adding that he has shown that he is committed not only to creating jobs but to retain existing jobs in the country.  “All labour market actors namely, employers and labour need good governance to create level playing field in the world of work” he observed.

Comrade Aremu said during the last fuel strike, purposeful intervention of the Honourable Minister brought about a mutually acceptable solution also favoured by NECA, adding that the principle is the same to promote industrial harmony and justice.  “Employers cannot pick and choose government’s role when it only favours them” he noted.