For people not lose their jobs or their terms on technology, Ayuba Wabba said ”We must find ways of making sure that we create new jobs for them.“
By Eberechi Obinagwam
As Nigeria progresses into the fifth industrial revolution with the quest to meeting the new forms of work involving the advent of technology, outgoing president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Ayuba Wabba, said the need for social protection of all workers should be scaled up in other to meet up the ILO standard of labour adjudication which is the global practice in other to strike a balance between the employees and the employers.
Ayuba Wabba who was speaking 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) in Lagos said that all employers, whether they are on the platform economy or outsourcing services must find ways of expanding the social protection cover for all of them (workers) to be protected because first and foremost, he said they are citizens and they are human beings.
Adding he said, “They need to have means of livelihood that is why the platform of the new form of work was created. We should not allow any worker to fall below expected standard that we are setting for in this new forms of work”.
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For people not lose their jobs or their terms on technology, Ayuba Wabba said ”We must find ways of making sure that we create new jobs for their terms and technology. We must find ways of making sure that we create new jobs in those areas and that is why the five new unions were registered in the last one week and it’s from the informal sector.
“The Uber drivers are now unionised. They have formed a new union and we are providing service for them and the four others are affiliated to NLC all in a way to make sure that no worker is left under the bridge.”
He also disclosed that for Nigerians to be on the new forms of work, to attend the labour adjudication, challenges, workers should be ready to partner with employers to see how to make businesses profitable but, he said ”We must also share in the surplus that businesses are making.”
”The whole thinking of modern day industrial relationship is the relationship between an employer and employee where employees will be willing to make sure that no employers runs business at a loss. They should be a symbolyotic relationship that have existed between the worker and the employers because we need each other. We need to have employers for you to have workers. And certainly, workers can be interested on how employment and businesses can be sustainable.”
Keynote speaker, president, National Industrial Court of Nigeria, Justice Benedict Bakwaph Kanyip, said that the theme, Labour Adjudication in Nigeria: The present and the Future is instructive.
According to him, it intuits that a new labour Jurisprudence is in the horizon, “Indeed now with us, different from what it was in the past. This is true and I have often told especially lawyers who practice before us as the NICN that it is time all went back to school to study this new labour Jurisprudence which new labour Jurisprudence is best understood once the historical antecedents, embedded more in the varying jurisdiction of the court itself and appreciated.”
He noted that a quiet revolution regarding labour Jurisprudence in the country is what will shape labour adjudication now and on the future , adding that the revolution is currently going on at the NICN since the promulgation of the Third Alteration to the 1999 constitution.
Also, Chairman of Governing Council , Nigeria Employers Consultative Association NECA, Taiwo Adeniyi said one of the mandate of the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association is to promote Enterprise competitiveness and sustainability and to deepen collaboration with partners and stakeholders in the indiustrial and work place relations.
He said this event is one of their activities to actualise that mandate as he urged all members companies and indeed, cooperate Nigerians to harness the endless benefits from the forum.
He noted that industrial peace is the key to national development. “Nigeria has had its own share of industrial unrest both in the public and private sectors. The implications of such industrial actions are well known and need not be reiterated here,” he said.
However, he said, as stakeholders in the workplace and national development, we must constantly find a middle ground of compromise, whereby with a win-win prospective , we all advance our sometimes different objectives. ” We all have a common responsibility to align our divergent views, consolidate our interests and put to use the machineries of conflict resolution as enshrined in various status to attain national economic development.”
He added that the quest for industrial harmony is the collective responsibility of all stakeholders. “While we continue to consolidate our partnership and collaboration with organised labour, we must say that the end need to deepen the partnership and collaboration is imperative more than ever before as the nation faces critical issues in the coming months.
The Chairman Governing Council, Adeniyi urged all well meaning Nigerians to join them in their advocacy for a favourable and hospitable environment for businesses to thrive and flourish for the betterment of employees, employers and government itself.