EVALUATING THE SCOPE OF ESSENTIAL SERVICES UNDER EXTANT LABOUR REGULATIONS IN NIGERIA

This article primarily interrogates the notion of essential services under domestic labour regulations as well as international labour standards which reflects the jurisprudence of the International Labour Organization (ILO). It also espouses the intervention of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria which widened the scope of essential services in line with international labour standards and global best practices. This was pursuant to a decision th reached by the Court on 4 February 2014. Aside distinguishing essential services from non-essential services for the purpose of invocation of strikes and lockouts, this article interrogates the salient basis for compartmenta lisation of the wide spectrum of services in the workplace. It also demonstrates how the compartmentalisation of services impacts on basic rights and guarantees in the workplace. In espousing the desirability for entrenching minimum service during strikes in ensuring continuous delivery of basic services and to cushion the adverse impact of strikes on the workplace, this article makes a case for the review of domestic labour regulations in a manner that guarantees minimum service during industrial actions leading to withdrawal of services by workers engaged in the provision of essential services. In Nigeria, essential services encompass the public services of the federation and states of the federation, hospitals, educational institutes, and electricity service providers. The article found, inter alia, that the blueprint provided by the prescriptions of ILO on the notion of essential services represents the consensus of civilised States as well as global best practices on the discourse. Accordingly, it raises the exigencies for aligning domestic labour regulations on the notion of essential services in Nigeria with international labour standards in a manner that practically culminates in re-classification of the list of essential services by distilling truly essential services from the non-essential ones.