Group moves against Lagos anti-strike bill

The bill seeks to make strike an offence for any group of workers in the state, but CDWR’s chairman, Comrade Rufus Olusesan, said in Lagos at the weekend that the bill is a throwback to military dictatorship in a democratic environment.Olusesan said, “This is tragic and quite laughable that a House of Assembly in a […]

The bill seeks to make strike an offence for any group of workers in the state, but CDWR’s chairman, Comrade Rufus Olusesan, said in Lagos at the weekend that the bill is a throwback to military dictatorship in a democratic environment.
Olusesan said, “This is tragic and quite laughable that a House of Assembly in a civil rule could ever contemplate such a bill in the first instance when its mandates include expanding the vista of democratic rights of citizens as well as workers of which protests and strikes are features of their legitimate expressions of fundamental human rights.
 “For further enlightenment of the House and the executive arm of the Lagos State government, we wish to emphasize that labour strike is legitimate worldwide as an acceptable weapon of fighting back when rights and interest of workers are undermined and all other meaningful approaches have failed.”
He added that it is not within the purview of any legislature to criminalise strike or industrial actions, stressing that rather than arrogate the power of life and death to itself which this anti-workers bill represents, the House should know that it is the anti-labour programmes, policies and actions of government and other employers of labour that make strikes inevitable.