FG plans N97 per litre fuel price hike
http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/headline/f108062007.html

THE Federal Government plans to hike the current fuel price of N75 per litre to N97 even as the dust raised by the price increase in the dying days of the Obasanjo administration is yet to settle.

This indication was given by the Federal Government delegation to a meeting with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) on resolving the looming crisis over the price hike.
Labour is threatening to call out workers on strike to protest the hike.

Meanwhile, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has observed that nearly 100 years after its first convention on working time, over 600 million people are engaged in excessive long hours of work— over 48 hours a week— thereby contributing to declining productivity around the world.

Yesterday’s tripartite meeting lasted over six hours with the NLC and TUC asking government to revert to the former price of N65 per lite. Government, however, said this was not possible.
Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mr Funso Kukpolokun, said government subsidising fuel price to the tune of N200 billion annually.

Excessive work hours reduces productivity — ILO

Meanwhile, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has observed that nearly 100 years after its first convention on working time, over 600 million people are still engaged in excessive long hours of work — over 48 hours a week— thereby contributing to declining productivity around the world. It described its new findings on excessive long hours of work as worrisome.

The ILO report noted that attempts to reduce hours in countries where excessive working hours are prevalent have “been unsuccessful for various reasons including the need of workers to work long hours simply to make ends meet and the widespread use of overtime by employers in an effort to increase their enterprises’ output under conditions of low productivity.”

The organisation which prefers a maximum 48 working hours a week in line with its Convention emphasised that work within this period reduced the risk of occupational injuries, illnesses and “their associated costs to workers, employers, and society as a whole” and urged member countries to ensure that the ILO Convention on working hours is implemented in their countries.

Nigeria is signatory to the ILO Convention and has since adopted the 40 hours per week: eight hours for five days work schedule.

A new report: “Working Time Around the World: Trends in Working Hours, Laws and Policies in a Global Comparative Perspective,” being discussed at the on-going 96th conference of the ILO in Geneva, Switzerland noted: “An estimated 22 per cent of the global work force or 614.2 million workers, are working (excessively) long hours.”

It has, therefore, called on members to adopt “family-friendly working time measures adapted to national circumstances, such as flexi-time, emergency family leave, and part-time work.”In addition, the ILO recommended that member countries promote “the development of high quality part-time work, shaped by local institutions and traditions and informed by the principles and measures found in the ILO’s Part-Time Work Convention, 1994 (No. 175), which can help promote gender equality.”

It said shorter hours of work have positive side which include “benefits to workers’ health and family lives, reduced accidents at the workplace, as well as greater productivity and equality between the sexes.

“At the same time, the study says a considerable number of short-hours workers in developing and transition countries may be underemployed, and thus more likely to fall into poverty,” it added.It identified countries where people engage in excessive long hours.

“In terms of those countries with the highest incidence of long working hours for 2004-05 (defined as more than 48 hours per week), Peru topped the list at 50.9 per cent of workers, the Republic of Korea as next at 49.5 per cent, followed by Thailand at 46.7 per cent and Pakistan at 44.4 per cent .

“In developed countries, where working hours are typically shorter, the United Kingdom stood at 25.7 per cent, Israel at 25.5 per cent, Australia at 20.4 per cent, Switzerland at 19.2 per cent, and the United States at 18.1 per cent,” the report said.In addition, the report noted what it described as “gender gap” in working time. It noted that men tend to work longer average hours than women worldwide, with women working shorter hours in almost every country studied.

Yes O! Free Market Economy for all by the year 2010!
The principle of demand and supply rocks!

Why is NLC complaining? Were they not the ones that forced OBJ to implement the IMF plan? Okay, they read the part that said government should increase salaries, but they ignored the part where it said government should privatise industries and remove all subsidy.
It is NLC that has landed us where we are today.
They were the ones that handed the masses and the government over to these ruthless IMF policies.