By Chidinma Ewunonu-Aluko, Ibadan
The Bishop, Catholic Diocese of Oyo, Most Rev. Emmanuel Badejo, has tasked governments at all levels to be sensitive to workers plights and pay them meaningful remuneration that would ignite more commitment.
He said that workers needed to be paid salary for work done to guarantee them the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for themselves and family on the material, social and cultural levels.
Badejo made the call in his Workers’ Day message, made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Ibadan.
He said as Nigerians planned to observe Workers’ Day on Monday, government should penitently be sensitive to the workers’ plights and loudly encourage them by paying handsomely.
The Catholic Bishop said in Nigeria, the condition of most workers remained pathetic and needed to be urgently reviewed .
He said government’s insensitivity to the plight and demands of workers such as doctors, nurses, teachers, journalists, and security agencies was nothing short of cruelty, especially when compared to politicians’ remunerations.
This he added, sadly affected the entire masses who relied on the services which those workers provided.
“In fact, working conditions in both the public and private sectors yearn for serious and urgent overhauling.
“Nigeria, so to speak, needs a moral blood transfusion. Nevertheless, with the imminent dispensation, employers and employees must embrace a new ‘regime of merit’ and rebuild the crumbling labour fortress.
“Only a just relationship driven by dialogue and sensitivity can guarantee an escape from the quagmire of resentment and suspicion which currently characterises the relationship between employees and employers in the country.
“With that new hope, it is still pertinent even today to say to all: Happy Workers’ Day with wishes for a brighter future,” he said.
According to him, May 1 yearly calls for an evaluation of work, workers and working conditions all around the world.
This, he added, was because work was one indispensable resource by which God made man and by which man sustained the world.
“We are told that after all the work, God saw that what He had done was good. For this reason, we know that there is dignity in work and work is really love made visible.
“It is thus befitting to congratulate workers on this day and all who provide conducive environment in which work could be done.
“Regrettably today, conflicts, discrimination, unjust structures, scarcity of jobs, bad management and greed hamper the integral human development that work ought to bring to individuals, family and the society.
“This, to say the least, is unfortunate and deserves urgent attention,” he said.
Badejo also emphasised that integral human development, the ideal of all humanity, would remain a mirage if contentious issues concerning work were not resolved.
He pointed out that the Catholic Church taught that ‘just wages are a legitimate fruit of work’, while it could be grave injustice to withhold or refuse it.
He further stressed that remuneration for work should guarantee man the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for himself and his family on the material, social and cultural levels.
“Governments and peoples cannot honestly desire peace or authentic development without ensuring just wages for work done.
“Exploitation of others or their resources, forcing down prices of raw materials, inhospitable conditions of work, unjustly taking over the property belonging to others or the like, query human dignity, damage social trust and offend the moral law of God.
“Conversely, at the personal levels workers too must do just work for the wages they receive in order to fulfill the social contract and not to be guilty of dishonesty and stealing.
“Every worker in some way participates in the divine project of advancing the work of creation.
“According to Pope Francis, May 1st each year, the feast of St Joseph the Worker, is the day the Church remembers the world of labour.
“On that day the Church demands that “work be dignified everywhere and for everyone,” and that the work of men and women everywhere “inspire the will to develop an economy of peace all over the world,” he said.
He said the Church also prayed for all those who in the course of their work, lost life, limbs, and property, especially victims of corrupt and unjust systems, that their sacrifices were not allowed to pass in vain. (NAN).
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