‘Remove exploitative systems against workers’

The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU) has marked this year’s World Precarious Day with a call on the government and employers to remove all exploitative systems of management against workers.

To this end, the group has urged the government and other stakeholders to consider amending the Labour Act so as to come up with stiffer sanctions on defaulters of the law.

In a statement issued by the ICU and signed by its Acting General Secretary, Mr Morgan Ayawine, the union further requested for the National Labour Commission (NLC) and the Labour Department to be adequately resourced in order to enable them efficiently discharge their duties.

ICU demands

The workers’ body observed that the use of outsourcing was a fragrant violation of relevant provisions of the Labour Law, especially regarding casual and contract workers, and asked for pragmatic steps to be taken to address the situation.

The ICU further called on organised labour to step up efforts towards ensuring the eradication of abuses meted out to contract and casual workers, as well as disregard of their rights.

Employers have also been urged to create working conditions that promote not only social integration, but enhance participation in decision making, freedom of association and rights to collective bargaining. 

World Precarious Day

The World Precarious Day is marked on October 7 each year in solidarity with workers who are shortchanged by their employers. 

According to the ICU, decent work, referred to work that is productive, gives fair income, offers security at the workplace and social protection for the family and equal opportunities and better prospects for personal development.

In the words of the ICU, precarious workers are those employees who are denied decent work or those who work under unfavourable conditions, including denial of social insurance and other benefits.

“Today, the destruction of standards or permanent employment has become the order of the day as employers devise mechanisms to make abnormal profit at the expense of workers. This classical example of exploitation impoverishes the ordinary worker and must be stopped,” the ICU stressed.

The statement from the ICU urged workers to continue to demand for better working conditions commensurate with their output.