Olasanoye, ASSBIFI President, tasks ‎govt on decent work environment … decries poverty, job losses in Nigeria

The Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) has said with the global economic crisis hitting workers in the country, work can only be decent when it has fair incomes that enhances workers’ standard living standards.

The National President of ASSBIFI, Comrade Oyinkan Olasanoye, disclosed this to mark the celebration of World Day For Decent Work in Lagos, tagged ‘End Corporate Greed: The World Needs A Pay Rise’.

According to her, “Globalisation and technology have created incredible wealth in the working place, but left too many working people marginalised and fearful of insured future ;and hoping for a pay rise , as economic recession has taken its toll on people, institutions and organisations.

She explained that the business environment has been described as challenging, unpredictable and unstable. However, executive compensation has grown to about 250 per cent faster than workers’ income, yet corporations blame high cost of doing business on workers.”
She said,”With the global economic crisis hitting workers hard in the country, work can only be decent when it has fair income that enhances workers’ standard of living, with social protection for the family, without greed dictating the rule of the economy.”

Olasanoye called on the government to use decent work as an action to bring about economic growth that puts people first without struggling for living on minimum wage and pay rise for all workers.

The guest lecturer, Dr. Francis Anyim, of the Department of Industrial Relation and Personnel Management, University of Lagos, lamented that decent jobs are lost.

He further stressed that many employers refuse to pay their employees, while government too refuses to be proactive in increasing minimum wage.

Anyim, in his lecture, noted that Nigeria should have been one of the countries paying higher minimum wage if not for greed, saying that the country is endowed with natural resources.

Anyim explained that the division among the labour unions has brought about the setbacks in resolving the issue of minimum wage.

“Lack of unity among the labour movement is causing problems for the Nigerian workers, because the agitation for increase in minimum wage should have been resolved long ago; for government to include it in the 2018 budget”, he said.