Don’t Remove Labour From Exclusive List, NLC Warns FG

The Nigeria Labour Congress on Tuesday, warned the Federal Government to desist from its plan to deregulate labour to States by removing it from the Exclusive Legislative List.

The Congress argued that the decision would create intractable chaos for the country as well as judicial nightmares, saying the government would also flout International Labour Organizations conventions.

President of NLC, Ayuba Wabba, in a statement made available in Abuja, explained that the nation-states legislation on Labour is driven substantially from the International Labour Organisation conventions, protocols and recommendations and other instruments domesticated through the Acts of parliament.

The labour leader maintained that such development explained the near uniformity of labour laws across the nations of the world and relative global industrial order, harmony and an attraction for foreign investment.

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He stated, “In the light of this, deregulating labour to the states will inevitably create intractable problems. At the membership level, the 36 states of the federation and the FCT are not sovereign which is a basis for ILO membership of Nigeria.

“Secondly, a corpus of labour legislation across the 36 States and FCT will almost certainly create a judicial nightmare.

“Thirdly, investors will be scared away as they will consider this as an unnecessary addition to the already hostile operating environment. At the level of workers who often act in the national interest, this will whittle down patriotic influence.

”In the light of this, we will strongly advocate against removing labour from the Exclusive Legislative List. Not even during the military era was this contemplated.”

According to him, the reasons for Nigeria’s relative industrial growth and development, and evolution into an investor’s haven were partly attributed to its willingness to subject itself to this global order and corpus of international labour standards.