The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has vowed to mobilise its entire membership and ally with civil society to resist in totality the proposed Nigeria Social Security Trust Fund (NSSTF) Bill, which is currently being peddled in the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly.
NLC President Joe Ajaero, in a statement on Monday, said the Bill is clearly not a reform, but a brazen and unpatriotic act of class warfare, strategically manoeuvred by elements within the state apparatus to expropriate and plunder the collective wealth of the working class, accrued from workers’ sweat and blood.
According to him, the NSSTF Bill is an enemy of social justice, a grave assault on the principles of tripartism, and a declaration of war against the Nigerian worker.
Advising the leadership of the Senate to stand the Bill down, as it is a poisonous legislation that must be killed forthwith, he said the Senate should not be used as a conveyor belt for the alienation and impoverishment of Nigerian workers.
“This is a catastrophic and unacceptable dilution of workers’ voice. By reducing the NLC’s representation and creating an artificial majority for the government bloc, the Bill seeks to silence the very people for whom the Fund exists.
“This is a gross violation of International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions, particularly ILO Convention 144 on Tripartite Consultation, and a betrayal of the Philadelphia Declaration, which guarantees workers’ representatives equal status in democratic decision-making,” he said.
Stating that its representation on the Board was non-negotiable, the NLC demanded that not a reduction, but an enhancement of workers’ representation to three seats to reflect the collective strength of the working class.
It demanded that the sanctity of the tripartite structure must be preserved, noting that the principle of equal voice for government, employers, and labour was the bedrock upon which the Fund stands.
Should the National Assembly proceed on “this treacherous path of legalising the seizure of workers’ funds, the Nigeria Labour Congress will be left with no other option than to issue a national directive to all workers and their unions to compel their employers to cease from further deductions and remittances to the NSITF. If the Fund is to be hijacked and converted into a tool for primitive accumulation by those who should protect it, then we will not stand by and watch our contributions be looted.”
