A REVIEW OF THE RIGHTS OF EMPLOYEES UNDER NIGERIAN LAW

Employment laws have been in existence for years and dates far back to the Colonial Labour Code Ordinance[1],which was the first statute regulating employment law in Nigeria. Over the years, several statutes have been enacted to cater for employment relations in Nigeria. It is not out of place therefore, to say that employer/employee relationship is not new to the history of mankind. Most subject matters be it Science, Arts, Social Science etc, possess a historical background. Employer/employee relationship is not left out of this historical background.

Looking at the historical background of the employer/employee relationship, we will discover that there are five main modes of productions relations[2]which led to the development of the employer/employee relationship. They include;

a)      Pre-class society or primitive communism

b)      Slave epoch

c)      Feudal epoch

d)      Capitalist epoch

e)      Socialist epoch