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NIGERIAN TOBACCO COMPANY LIMITED AND NATIONAL UNION OF FOOD, BEVERAGES AND TOBACCOJ EMPLOYEES (NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COURT) H ON. JUSTICE (CHIEF) P.A. ATILADE PRESIDENT DR. E. C. IWUJI MEMBER ALHAJI Z.M. BELLO MEMBER SUIT NO: NIC/6/86 DATE OF JUDGEMENT FRIDAY, 30TH JULY, 1982. LABOUR LAW Dismissal - Summary dismissal - Infliction of on an employee - Employees conduct that will not warrant. LABOUR LAW Dismissal-Summary dismissal-The employee's summary dismissal constitutes victimization for trade union activities – How treated. LABOUR LAW Reinstatement of a dismissed employee - Industrial Arbitration Panel can order - Whet: can order only when employee was dismissed ground of trade union activities. LABOUR LAW Reinstatement of employee - Where rein statement of an employee will not serve useful purpose - What will be entitled to. LABOUR LAW Severance pay - Summary dismissal of employee - Where unfair and unjustified Whether entitled to severance pay. LABOUR LAW Trade dispute - Dispute arising from termination. of employee's appointment - When constitute trade dispute- Whether constitutes trade disp. only when connected with trade union activities of the employee. 2. Whether the Appellant is under a legal obligation, contractual or statutory, to pay the ex-gratia productivity bonus. 3. Whether the Appellant can recover from the members of her Branch Union, salaries or wages already paid to them in respect of the periods when they embarked on illegal strikes. FACTS: The dispute between the parties at the Industrial Arbitration Panel (IAP) was a claim for merit of productivity bonus. The IAP made an award of one month's salary as productivity - favour of the Respondent to which the Appellant objected. The appellant maintained that the ex-gratia productivity bonus claimed by the "dents is a fringe benefit and that in the absence of any legal definition of fringe benefit under the Productivity Prices and Income Board Act, 1977 fringe benefit should be regulated as any incidental benefit paid to an employee in addition to wages; that the exgratia productivity bonus claimed by the Respondent is "income" within section 4(1) of the productivity, Prices and Income Board Act, 1977, which refers to "wages or other forms of income". On the other hand, the Respondent maintained that it was not asking for wages, salaries, income fringe benefits, but claiming a share in the surplus profit as declared by the management, which is a once-and-for-all payment. That fringe benefits are payments, apart from wages and salaries, made to workers at a fixed rate and at a fixed time referable to the year (1981); and that productivity bonus is not me within the 1980 Income Policy Guidelines, Paragraph A(vi) of which refers to increase in wages, salaries and fringe benefits, that is, things of a permanent nature which are already known unlike productivity bonus which is not of a permanent nature. HELD: (Allowing the Appellant s appeal and setting aside the IAP award): 1. On Whether ex-gratia productivity bonus is a fringe benefit and an income - Ex-gratia productivity bonus is a fringe benefit under the Income Policy guidelines, payment of which requires the approval of the Minister of Employment, Labour and Productivity. It is also income within the meaning of section 4( 1) of the Productivity, Prices and Income Board Act, 1977. 2. On Whether employer under obligation to pay ex-gratia productivity bonus to its workers An employer is not under any legal obligation, contractual or statutory, to pay ex-gratia productivity bonus to its workers. 3. On Whether employer who voluntarily paid its workers for the period of strikes entitled to deduct such payments from wages and salaries - Where an employer, fully cognizant of its rights under the law, voluntarily makes its workers payments for the period of illegal strikes, it will be estopped in law, its conduct, from claiming such deductions from the workers' wages and salaries 4. On meaning of "other forms of income", in section 4(1) of the Production Prices and Income Board Act, 1977 - This is moreso as the modern tendency of the courts is to attenuate the application of the ejusdem generis rule by construing general words in their ordinary se: The words "other forms of income" in section 4(1) of the Productivity, Prices Income Board Act cannot be limited in nature and character to "wages ". The «i "wages" does not constitute, by itself, a class or genus which should ha*. controlling effect on the general words "other forms of income". Accordingly words "other forms of income" should be given their ordinary normal meaning 4 On When National Industrial Court will presume that procedure laid down for reference of trade dispute had been followed - Where the National Industrial Court finds that the cases before it constitute trade disputes under the relevant law, it will presume that the Minister was satisfied that the procedure laid down in the Trade Disputes Act for reference of trade dispute to the Industrial Arbitration Panel had been followed. 5 On Nature of employee's conduct that will not warrant summary dismissal - An employee's failure to submit sick report promptly, which constitutes an infraction of his employer's working rule, does not warrant the infliction of the extreme penalty of summary dismissal on the employee. 6. On Employee's remedy where his summary dismissal constitutes victimization for trade union activities - Where an employee's summary dismissal amounts to victimization for trade union activities, his summary dismissal is unfair and unjustified and he will be entitled to severance pay. 7 On whether Industrial Arbitration Panel can only order reinstatement of an employee dismissed on ground of trade union activities - There is nothing in the Trade Disputes Act, 1976 which specifies that the Industrial Arbitration Panel can only order the reinstatement of an employee who has been dismissed on the ground of trade union activities. HON. JUSTICE (CHIEF) P.A. ATILADE - PRESIDENT DR. E.C. IWUJI - MEMBER ALHAJI Z.M. BELLO - MEMBER