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Labour reform bill
Predictably, the executive bill recently sent to the National Assembly by President Olusegun Obasanjo, proposing a restructuring of the country�s centralized Labour unions, has generated much controversy. The bill seeks to amend the Trade Unions Act with the chief aim of removing the status of the Nigeria Labour Congress as the sole central labour organisation in the country. It also seeks to make it mandatory for any trade union or federation of trade unions to secure the approval of at least two-thirds majority of its members before embarking on any strike, unlike the procedure under the present Trade Unions Act, whereby the Central Working Committee of the NLC makes such decisions for its members.
In addition, the bill proposes that ministers be empowered to determine the unions or associations that civil servants in their ministries should belong to. Membership of trade unions will also be made voluntary, under the bill.
In his cover letter to the National Assembly, President Obasanjo declared that the proposed amendments were necessary in order to democratize organized Labour and bring its practices more in harmony with the imperatives of the new democratic order in the country and, indeed, the world at large. Coming shortly after the last national strike organized by the NLC against the recent fuel price hike, the proposed amendments to the Trade Unions Act are generally seen as a punitive manoeuvre to dismantle what The Presidency apparently regards as a potent opposition.
For an administration already perceived in many circles as very intolerant of opposition and abrasive to even well-meaning critics, the attempt to weaken the NLC�s capacity to mobilize public resistance to unpopular government policies is unfortunate. A viable democratic order requires the role being played by Labour at present as a barometer of the civil society�s response to government policies which have far-reaching effects on the lives of ordinary citizens.
At the same time, there is something to say for the advantages of reforming the country�s Labour practices, in harmony with the spirit of �deregulation� of the polity. One deleterious effect of previous decades of military rule in Nigeria has been the imposition of a monolithic structure on public organizations. So entrenched is this single-command mind set that even Nigeria�s original federal structure has been distorted. In this context, the NLC may be seen as a product of a past national obsession with monopolies.
A proper restructuring of organized Labour in the spirit of greater liberalism and the individual exercise of choice is, threfore, crucial. What has given room for suspicion, however, is the administration�s marked reluctance to embark on a similar fundamental restructuring of the polity. It has failed, for instance, to privatize or liberalize the National Electric Power Authority, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation or the Nigerian Railway Corporation, although the economy has continued to suffer grievously as a result. Salaries and allowances of public officers are still centrally fixed for all states and local councils, without regard to the financial realities. Likewise, judges are still centrally appointed and disciplined, under a supposed federal arrangement.
Besides, if the government�s motive is to democratize Labour and protect the individual rights of workers, as claimed by the President, how will these goals be achieved by empowering his ministers to dictate what unions civil servants must belong to?
It should be noted that any reforms imposed by vested external interests on the Labour movement in Nigeria will be ineffective, and may backfire. A forcibly fractionalized Labour movement has its own dangers, not least of which is the possibility of uncontrollable wild strikes by a multiplicity of federated unions.
The Punch, Monday July 05, 2004
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