By Eberechi Obinagwam
The newly elected president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, has vowed to tackle casualisation, outsourcing, indecent jobs and excise duty in Nigeria’s work system
Ajaero made this statement at the commencement of his ongoing courtesy visits to unions in Lagos with the purpose of identifying their challenges yesterday, February 28, 2023.
At the National Union of Chemical Footwear Rubber Leather and Non-Metallic Products Employees (NUCFRLANMPE), where Ajaero first visited, the president of the union, Comrade Olatunji Babatunde Goke, while congratulating him as the new NLC president, disclosed to him that casualisation, outsourcing, indecent jobs, and anti-labour parties have been the major challenges in the industry and appealed to him to help in the fight against and pledged his continuous support to his government.
He proceeded his visits to the National President of Steel and Engineering Workers Union of Nigeria (SEWUN) and the National Union of Food, Beverages & Tobacco Employees (NUFBTE) where they all received him and plotted out the same issues of casualisation, outsourcing, excise duty as challenges facing the industry.
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NLC president, in response to all, promised to tackle all of them in his tenure. “I will not disappoint that confidence you have for me. We must work. There is no time for laziness.”
Ajaero noted that one of the factors militating against any prospects for any solution to redundancy and casualisation is that the current leadership of some unions and the Ministry of Labour and Employment are also directly or indirectly in ownership of most of the outsourcing companies.
“What they are doing is changing casualisation to outsourcing, it is an advanced way of manipulating casualisation. It’s just unfortunate that the ministry is indirectly supporting casualisation by making casual workers to be unionised.
“How can you give blanket licence for people in casual to be unionised whereas within two years the employers will sack them and replace them with the new set? What we are fighting for and which I believe the ministry should support, is the conversion of such workers into permanent staff before they are unionised.”
