Workers’ Protection in the Covid-19 Era in Nigeria

Abstract

Against the backdrop of measures adopted sequel to the outbreak of the pandemic, this research focuses on the impact of Covid-19 on the workplace. It highlights and interrogates the utility of responsive measures and also articulates recondite labour issues relating to changing work patterns, pay cuts, job losses culminating in growing unemployment rate, and occupational safety and health concerns within the context of extant labour standards. It also extends focus to the impact of Covid-19 on existing challenges revolving around working poverty, decent work deficit, unfair labour practices, and ineffective labour regimes. This research finds, inter alia, that impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the workplace is colossal, disruptive, and unprecedented, and that extant labour standards, having proved mute on a wide range of contingent workplace issues, can only provide some sort of protection in a detached manner. The research concludes with an array of far-reaching recommendations on the adoption of protective and remedial legal norms that are transient, flexible, and proactive enough to accommodate diverse situations capable of undermining the prospects for labour laws, regulations, and policies in the Covid-19 era.