Don decries huge decent work deficits in Nigeria

A university lecturer has identified huge decent work deficit in Nigeria and urged the stakeholders including labour unions to address the deficit.

Speaking during presentation of a paper titled ‘End Corporate Greed-The World Needs a pay rise’  to mark the Work Decent Day, Dr Francis Anyim of Department of Employment Relations and Human Resources Management, University of Lagos, said the labour movement in Nigeria must address this huge deficit.

“It has been observed that despite the ratification of the Conventions of ILO that deal with the right of workers in the workplace, there have been violations of these rights.

“Workers are now subjected to all manner of indecent treatment in the workplace. Three elements are essential for the achievement of decent work objectives. The first element is employment. It is a truism that for a person to have a decent job, he or she must have a job in the first instance.

“The second essential ingredient is respect for core labour standards. This includes the prohibition of forced labour and child labour, freedom of association and the right to organize and bargain collectively, equal remuneration for men and women for work of equal value and non-discrimination in employment.

“The third element is improving the quality of jobs. The creations of jobs alone are not enough even where core standards are respected. ILO is concerned not only with the creation of jobs but with the creation of jobs of acceptable quality as quantity of employment cannot be divorced from quality.”

Dr Anyim argued that decent work deficit noticeable is the fact that decent jobs are lost because of the change in the method of production which is capital intensive and casualised labour is used in production.

“Wages are small and the right to organise is violated as contracting firms resist the attempt or quest by workers to organise and join unions. A large number of the workforce in Nigeria work under indecent conditions and can no longer survive on what they earn, the situation is made worse by the fact that those who work also have to support family members who form part of the huge army of the unemployed.

“In the face of this glaring plight and misery of the workers, the employers in the private sector, top government officials and members of the political class find their pay and wealth growing or swelling astronomically while workers have had to survive on starvation wages,” he said.

He therefore cocluded by calling on the state and employers of labour to passionately come to the rescue of workers nationwide by putting smiles on their faces through imminent pay rise.