…Condemns competence test in public schools
Stories by Bimbola Oyesola, 08033246177
Organised labour recently decried what it described as “gross violation of workers’ dignity” through the controversial “competence test” for workers and teachers, particularly in public schools.
Vice president of IndustriALL Global Union, Issa Aremu, at the 2017 national conference of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) in Kaduna, Kaduna State, called on state governors to “dignify their respective workforce through capacity building, understanding and sympathy as demanded by the principles of decent work by International Labour Organisation.”
Aremu, who is also a national executive member of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the general secretary of Textile Workers’ Union, noted that the 1999 Constitution guarantees basic human and workers’ rights.
He lamented that Nigerians’ constitutional rights were being implemented more “in the breach than compliance,” citing non-payment and delayed payments of what he called “miserable pay” by some state governors and private employers.
He said it was “unacceptable and counter-productive” dramatising and criminalising workers’ skill gap when what was required was “skills upgrading and skills upliftment.”
The labour leader observed that Section 34(1) of 1999 Constitution holds that every individual, including working men and women, is entitled to respect for the dignity of his/her person adding that exhibiting so-called failures of teachers or any worker during competence test violates their rights to privacy and dignity.
“It is debatable if any of the state governors can truly pass competence/governance tests by Nigerians, but we all appreciate their weaknesses, we even re-elect some of them, only for them to degrade the workforce through punitive examinations not necessarily capacity building for improvement and promotion,” the labour leader said.
According to Aremu, Nigeria risks “perpetual underdevelopment if it refuses to treat its workforce better through training and re-training, better pay, work schedule and enforced discipline,” adding that more advanced nations, who hold regard labour as the most valued factor of production, such as China and India, are fast developing while Nigeria, which he alleged derides labour, lags behind.
The labour leader praised President Muhammadu Buhari for tasking some recalcitrant governors on non-payment of salaries adding that “workers’ rights to living wage are human rights.”
Also commending the activities of the president of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), Malachy Ugwummadu, the labour leader described CDHR as “a strong African institution made of strong men and women who, at the risks of persecution by military and civilian dictators,” stood to defend, sustain and promote fundamental human rights of all Africans as guaranteed in the Nigerian Constitution, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
Aremu also called on legislators to strengthen civil society, adding that “only vibrant civil society groups could serve as a check on the political class.”