(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires-
"administrative officer" means a divisional officer, a district officer or any officer exercising corresponding functions;
"agricultural undertaking" means any undertaking in which a worker is employed under a contract of employment for the purpose of agriculture, fisheries, horticulture, silviculture, the tending of domestic animals and poultry or the collection of the produce of any plants or trees, but does not include any such undertaking in which only members of the same family are employed;
"authorized labour officer" means an authorized labour officer authorized under section 77 of this Act;
"citizen" means citizen of Nigeria;
"chief or other indigenous authority" includes any chief or indigenous authority whose authority is customary or traditional;
"child" means a young person under the age of twelve years;
"collective agreement" means an agreement in writing regarding working conditions and terms of employment concluded between-
(a) an organization of workers or an organization representing workers (or association of such organizations) of the one part; and
(b) an organization of employers or an organization representing employers (or an association of such organizations) of the other part;
"collective bargaining" means the process of arriving or attempting to arrive at a collective agreement;
"contract" means contract of employment, and includes a contract of apprenticeship;
"contract of employment" means any agreement, whether oral or written, express or implied, whereby one person agrees to employ another as a worker and that other person agrees to serve the employer as a worker;
"domestic servant" means any house, stable or garden servant employed in or in connection with the domestic services of any private dwelling house, and includes servant employed as the driver of a privately owned or privately used motor car;
"employer" means any person who has entered into a contract of employment to employ any other person as a worker either for himself or for the service of any other person, and includes the agent, manager or factor of that first- mentioned person and the personal representatives of a deceased employer;
"employer's permit" means an employer's permit granted under section 24 of this Act;
"family" has the same meaning as in the First Schedule to the Workmen's Compensation Act;
"foreign contract" means a contract for the employment of a citizen outside Nigeria;
"function" includes power and duty;
"guardian" includes any person to whose care a young person has been committed (even temporarily) by a person having authority over the young person, and any person lawfully having charge of a young person who has no parents or whose parents are unknown;
"industrial undertaking" includes-
(a) mines, quarries and other works for the extraction of minerals from the earth;
(b) industries in which articles are manufactured, altered, cleaned, repaired, ornamented, finished, adapted for sale, broken up or demolished or in which materials are transformed, including shipbuilding and the generation and transformation of electricity or motive power of any kind;
(c) the construction, reconstruction, maintenance, repair, alteration or demolition of any building, railway, tramway, harbour, dock, canal, inland waterway, road, tunnel, bridge, viaduct, sewer, drain, well, telegraph or telephonic installation, electrical undertaking, gasworks, waterworks, or other works of construction, as well as the preparation for or the laying of the foundation of any such work or structure; and
(d) transport of passengers or goods by road, rail, air, sea or inland waterways, including the handling of goods at docks, quays, wharves, warehouses and airports, and including the carrying of coal or other materials by hand to or from lighters or ships,
but does not include any commercial or agricultural undertaking, any undertaking in which only members of the same family are employed or any customary occupation of a kind normally carried on at home;
"industrial worker" includes any artificer, journeyman, handicraftsman, canoeman, carrier, messenger, clerk, shop assistant, storekeeper, labourer, agricultural labourer, hotel or catering worker or apprentice and any person or class of persons gainfully employed or normally seeking a livelihood by gainful employment declared to be such by the Minister by order; "industry" includes trade;
"labour health area" means a labour health area declared under section 66 of this Act;
"Local Government" means a Local Government authority, the local authority of a township or any council or other authority (however styled) exercising statutory or customary powers of local administration in a State;
"mine" includes any place, excavation or working whereon, wherein or whereby any operation in connection with mining is carried on;
"Minister" means the Federal Minister for Employment, Labour and Productivity;
"public authority" means-
(a) the Federal Government; or
(b) a State Government; or
(c) a local government authority; or
(d) a statutory corporation, that is to say, a body corporate directly established by law in Nigeria, being a body which is expressly bound by law to comply with directions given by a Minister or by a corresponding authority; or
(e) a government- controlled company, that is to say, a limited liability company incorporated in Nigeria in which the Federal Government or a State Government has a controlling interest;
"public department" means a ministry or department of a public authority;
"public officer" means any person employed by a public authority;
"recruiter" means the holder of a recruiter's licence; "recruiter's licence" means a recruiter's licence granted under section 25 of this Act;
"recruiting" includes all operations undertaken with the object of obtaining or supplying the labour of persons who do not spontaneously offer their services at the place of employment, at a public emigration or employment office or at an office conducted by an employer's association and supervised by the Minister;
"State" means a State of the Federation;
"State Authority" means the Governor or Administrator of a State;
"wages" means remuneration or earnings (however designated or calculated) capable of being expressed in terms of money and fixed by mutual agreement or by law which are payable by virtue of a contract by an employer to a worker for work done or to be done or for services rendered or to be rendered;
"woman" means any member of the female sex whatever her age or status;
"worker" means any person who has entered into or works under a contract with an employer, whether the contract is for manual labour or clerical work or is expressed or implied or oral or written, and whether it is a contract of service or a contract personally to execute any work or labour, but does not include-
(a) any person employed otherwise than for the purposes of the employer's business, or
(b) persons exercising administrative, executive, technical or professional functions as public officers or otherwise, or
(c) members of the employer's family, or
(d) representatives, agents and commercial travellers in so far as their work is carried on outside the permanent workplace of the employer's establishment; or
(e) any person to whom articles or materials are given out to be made up, cleaned, washed, altered, ornamented, finished, repaired or adapted for sale in his own home or on other premises not under the control or management of the person who gave out the articles or the material; or
(f) any person employed in a vessel or aircraft to which the laws regulating merchant shipping or civil aviation apply;
"young person" means a person under the age of eighteen years.
(2) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, a reference to a numbered Part or section is a reference to the Part or section so numbered in this Act.
Section 91 of the Labour Act in Nigeria
Act structure