The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Monday charged its affiliate unions to adopt the responsibility of protecting migrant workers’ rights in Nigeria in furtherance to the awareness campaigns and successes achieved through the support of the International Labour Organisation’s FAIRWAY project.
NLC said it had achieved a lot in the efforts to attain a just, inclusive and conducive work space in Nigerian where the human and labour rights of migrant workers are protected.
The Congress noted that through the support of FAIRWAY project; “it has been able to improve awareness and sensitization on the rights of migrant workers, improve knowledge on migration and labour migration at the national space, development of necessary tools in the form of information guide, lunch migration recruitment advisor, research on decent work challenges that are faced by migrant workers in Nigeria.”
Speaking during a two-day programme for NLC affiliate Focal persons and members of National Trade Union Network on Migration and Decent Work, Fair Recruitment held in Abuja recently, the NLC’s Focal Person on migration, Comrade James Eustace, said: “Migrant workers are among the most vulnerable workers that are exploited especially those in irregular situation.
“The employers take advantage of their being in irregular situation to exploit them. By offering jobs in hazardous situations with no commiserate pay, without necessary working conditions, rights and privileges that national workers enjoy. So because of that, we feel we must live up to our goal of protecting the rights of workers, including migrant workers.”
He further said: “Trade unions are not just kicking off action, because they have been very active and effective in the advocacy for the protection of human and labour rights of migrant workers”.
Eustace also said the FAIRWAY project had given effective support to the Congress and its affiliates and all other workers in Nigeria for them to be effective in the migration governance space in Nigeria.
“But we believe that we need mainstreaming these activities into our regular day to day trade union activities and we are doing that through national platform for focal persons on migration of the various affiliate unions of the NLC.
“These two days is to first enhance the capacity of members of the network and to sensitise them in the tools that the trade union has developed over time in promoting better migration governance in Nigeria. We are reconstituting the steering committee of the platform for sustainability to run activities on its own,” the focal person further said.