The non-enforcement of the Nigerian labour law has given room for several anomalies in the labour market such that employers have seen irregularity as a norm and employees have been force to adjust to such life by fire, by force; because, honestly, there are no good-paying jobs out there and everyone wants to stay employed.
Because of these irregularities, employees are forced to work outside of their job description; they work overtime and may not get a dime added to their salary. Other times, employees are forced to work under stringent conditions where a person, who may be seriously sick, turns up to work because of fear of being axed by his/her boss.
Recently, someone shared a heart-wrenching story of how a man died at his workplace. He had been sick but he kept going to work as if all way well. He was said to have suffered a seizure at the office and his co-workers could not revive him as they lacked basic first aid skills and could not conduct CPR on him. The man died, just like that.
His death could have been prevented if he was given a listening hear by his boss because it was gathered that he tried to explain his condition to his madam at work but she would not have any of it and she went on to berate him (the deceased) in front of other staff members.
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According to the story, he had turned up at work shortly before his demise, hoping that he would meet his boss and formally take an excuse from work in order to take care of himself, but madam was unavailable and so, the seizure occurred and he was announced dead on arrival by the hospital.
What is the moral of this story?
Firstly, employees need to understand that their health is paramount and should be prioritised because it is only a living being that can work and earn a living. The day a worker dies, a vacancy for his role would be rolled out almost immediately. No one is indispensable in the labour market irrespective of how much or well theyserve the company.
And for the employers, employees are humans also. They have blood flowing through their veins like you and deserve to be heard out. It is not nice that the only thing that employers are concerned about is larger output and more revenue; these workers are not robots. Remember, they (employee) constitute a part of the primary publics and whatever affects them, affects the organisations output and ultimately, the revenue.
Therefore, employers should listen to their staff; be invested in their welfare; ensure they are registered for health insurance. Also, emergency medical care should be made available at the workplace while a medical expert should be invited to teach the staff basic first aid skills as this can come very handy when least expected.
To this end, a person’s health should not play second fiddle to anything else including work. No one is indispensable. If you die today, there’s someone else at the door, ready to take your place.
Always remember, health is wealth.
