Decent work as panacea for global peace — Wabba

President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba, speaks to journalists at the on-going International Labour Conference, holding in Geneva, Switzerland on some labour-related issues, including need for decent work, minimum wage and child labour, among others. MOSES JOHN was there. Excerpt.

Child labour
Last year, this issue was featured and Nigeria appeared at the committee on application of standard on this particular convention. And on reaching home what we tried to do is to work on the tripod.

As I speak to you, there is a tripartite committee working to review our laws, particularly the one that bothers on child Labour. You find out that our laws back at home was not consistent with the ILO convention on child Labour hence there was the need to get that law reviewed because you can’t work outside the law, especially when it is a convention.
And especially the age that is being referred to as child Labour. Our old law back at home was not actually consistent with the ILO convention. But as I speak with you, I think we are through with that law.
We are working assiduously with the National Assembly, they are supposed to have had a public hearing on that bill. But because of the fact that at the last ILC meeting, we agreed that the tripod should do a review and then send it back to NASS for enactment. So, progress has been made and very soon, it will be transmitted to the NASS.

Let me assure you that the chairpersons of the Senate committee and House of Representatives committee are aware of this development because it is with their consent that the law was brought back to the ministry of labour so that the tripod can look at it.
So, the first step is to address the lacuna or the lack of consistency with our laws and the second aspect is the application.
On the issue of application, all of us must be committed because of the fact that in the context of Nigerian setting, what the law allows is that for those works that child Labour is not accepted, there are also lighter works that the children can do, however, with limited number of hours. So, once that law is in place, it is now left for us to work for its implementation.

Green jobs
If you have followed the argument on the issue of climate change even back at home, if nothing is done, it is very obvious that the developing countries will be at the receiving end.
So, I think this initiative is quite good to make sure that even in the context of industrialisation, we must be able to work around issues of greener jobs so that the issue of pollution can be reduced and we can to save our climate. Because it is very obvious that it is human activities that is actually affecting the climate. So, it will require another level of conscious human activity to be able to deactivate the damage that is already done to our climate.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, yesterday quoted the issue of cerebra-spinal meningitis which arose because of the fact that the environment became much warmer.
As a country, we have a policy on climate change, as NLC, we have just launched a policy on climate change. This is because of the importance attached to it. In the context of providing greener jobs, we are looking at how our industries can have greener sources of energy. Everybody has a role in addressing this challenge. But as country we must have a policy that both the employer, the worker and the government must key into.

What we did as NLC is to look at how it affects workers, and we have come up with a policy and by the time we get home, we will be improving on it. But we must key into the issue of the moment. They are issues of development. You can’t talk of issues of development in the current dispensation without talking about climate change. Everybody is affected. If you pollute the environment, certainly you know that workers would be affected, either directly or indirectly. This is the perspective and workers have a role to play.

Decent work
We are looking at building peace through economic development, because some of the underlining factors that breed insecurity, instability and conflicts are inequality and poverty, where you have pool of working poor, certainly it’s a veritable avenue for instability and crisis. And you are aware that part of the problem we are facing back home as a country is economic instability.
Some of these crimes of kidnapping, armed robbery, insurgency, and bunkering, all of these things are related to issues of development. That you must ensure that people are not just working, but they have decent work.
And it has been proven around the world that part of how you can be able to address the issue of peace is by addressing the issue of development. You can have people that are working but if they are not decent work, certainly it cannot add to the issue of bringing about peace.
Most countries around Africa have conflicts, either armed conflicts, issues of insurgency or even issues of natural disaster. So, in the context of this, coming out of those challenges, we are looking at ILO intervention process, that decent work in conflict situations or aftermath of conflict can actually bring about stability.

You can’t have peace if human dignity is not respected. The context of the argument is that the issue of instability will continue if people don’t have anything doing. Because they say and idle man is the devil’s workshop. And most of those people back at home that are being used to perpetuate insecurity, if they don’t have something doing, they are ready made tools.
So, you can use decent work to actually bring about peace and security. And that is the context in which this particular topic: Employment, Decent Work for Peace and Resilience.
For instance, the success of the amnesty program cannot be complete if those youths are not engaged. They must be engaged through decent work for peace to continue to exist.
So, the prescription of ILO through the work of this committee is that in every situation of conflict, we must be able to look at issue of decent work and employment as a panacea to peace.
People even kill themselves because the wealth is being accumulated in the hands of the few. The majority are being impoverished. Inequality has increased especially the issue of the very poor in Nigeria and Africa.

Minimum wage review timeline
It’s good for people to express their fears, but it’s also good for leaders to be up and doing. For us organised Labour, certainly, it is an issue that we think is long overdue and we have got commitment from all levels, including the National Assembly that they are ready to make sure this issue is addressed once and for all.

In the last one month, the leader of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajamila, proposed a bill to the effect that the issue of the review of minimum wage should even be a provision of the law.
You are aware that in 2011, what we had was a tripartite agreement that after five years, the minimum wage will be reviewed. But they have even gone one step further by saying that it should not only end up in the tripartite agreement, it should be a product of law.
And I think that all of them in the National Assembly, which we have interfaced with, they are ready to do the needful, including if there is supplementary budget today, that they are ready to give it accelerated hearing. Therefore, those fears are real, but we are working assiduously from our perspective to ensure that those issues are addressed.
It is an issue that that you need to bring the governors, employers, government and organised Labour. And you know businesses are for profits and they are ready to do everything possible to delay anything that will take a dime out of their profits. We are mindful of that.

It’s not the first time we are treading this path, you remember in 2010, it was also the same process. There was also this insinuation. But I think when the die is cast, all of us then know that certainly the workers are pushed to the wall, there is a limit to patience and understanding. So, we are looking at reality because it is very clear that N18,000 in the context of the current economic reality cannot take you for a week.
I assure you that we on this side will play our role but I think the important thing is that the process must start and we must see it to the fact that this process must have a timeline where we can end it. We shouldn’t allow those workers to die first before the fruit of their Labour will manifest.

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