After the federal majority parties failed to conclude an agreement on Friday on a series of labour market reforms, they finally broke the deadlock overnight on Monday this week. In an early fail on the work:life balance front, the new measures were unveiled at a presumably sparsely-attended press conference at 2.30am. Bleary-eyed Ministers praised the agreement as “concrete progress for employees”, and assured sceptical employers that in turn “there will be more flexibility for companies” too. This blog post offers an overview of the most important measures agreed in the Labour Deal.
Right to be Offline
The measure that has attracted the most attention so far is the introduction of a right for employees to be offline. Companies with at least 20 employees will be obliged to respect this right and come to an agreement on the topic in consultation with their trade unions. The government believes that most employees cannot reasonably be expected to read or answer emails outside working hours. The collective labour agreement to be agreed at a company level will have to clarify how this principle is to be applied throughout the business and to set out the inevitable exceptions for seniority, role, emergency, etc.
Evening work
In previous communications, the government had already announced that the rules for evening work in e-commerce would become more flexible. In Belgium, work between 8pm and 6am is considered night work. If companies want staff to work at night, they have to...
The Presidency has dismissed Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde’s claim that the Federal Government is withholding 250 billion in Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) dividends for each state, describing the a...