PENGASSAN Seeks Amendment Of Labour Laws

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), has called on the Federal  Government to review labour laws to create healthy industrial relations in the country.

This is contained in a statement issued and signed by Comrade Babatunde Ogun, the President of the association.

Comrade Ogun said that the existing labour laws should be reviewed “so that the Minister of Labour and Productivity can be empowered to make binding pronouncements on parties while mediating.

He said that the mediation aspect of the labour laws should be the focus of the proposed review.

“There is need to review some of the country’s labour laws that are now obsolete, especially the aspect of the law that deals with mediation stressing that “Under the current laws no power is given to the Minister of Labour and Productivity while mediating in industrial disputes; currently the minister can only advice the parties.’’

Comrade Ogun said that the law should be reviewed to enable the minister make binding pronouncements on parties while mediating.

He expressed regret that the government could not enforce the conventions and other extant labour standards of the International Labour Organsiation (ILO) it had ratified.

The union’s boss advised the government to summon political courage to enforce all ILO conventions so as not to leave Nigerian workers at the mercy of their employers stressing that “Most of these conventions have provisions to ensure human dignity, improve workers’ welfare and protect workers against degradation while at work”.

The labour leader called on employers of labour to be profit-oriented and focus on human capacity development in the country.

The union leader also called for the review of the process of selecting judges of the National Industrial Court (NIC).

He said that some of the judgments showed that some of the judges did not have experience in extant labour laws and history.