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 Daily
Independent Online.
* Thursday, July 08, 2004.
Still on the NLC and Obasanjo tango
By Bimbo Kesington
Labour Reporter.
The
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) after a three-day nationwide strike in June
this year would have thought it had successfully won another battle on
behalf of the masses against what it described as the anti-people
policies of Obasanjo’s administration.
Recent
moves by President Olusegun Obasanjo to permanently clip the wings of
labour through the introduction of the infamous Trade Union bill to the
National Assembly has however proved that the President would stop at nothing until the
all-powerful umbrella body is finally made redundant and stripped of its
influence.
To
effectively pursue this, the President is trying to use the same law that
brought the NLC into existence against it. The congress was one
institution that was born under the military regime during the Cold War
era where industrial unions were divided along Eastern or Western
ideological lines. The Murtala/Obasanjo’s government at that time had
thought it wise though undemocratic, to create one central labour organ
amongst the industrial unions in the country.
The
government recognised only
the 29 junior industrial unions as affiliates of the NLC while
prohibiting the remaining 24 senior industrial unions from affiliating
with the congress.
The NLC
had for almost three decades enjoyed the monopoly of being the only
central labour organ in the country and the last resort of the common
man. Like Einstein, the government had created a ‘Frankenstein’ in the
NLC and it could no longer control or bend it to its whims and caprices.
The NLC has come to stay forever in the life of the country and its
people. The masses respect and obey what the president of the congress
says rather than what their elected President says. The support the
organised labour enjoys nationwide in the continued face-off between it
and Obasanjo since 1999 is only an evidence of who the masses see as
their messiah.
The
last nationwide strike was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
Obasanjo could take it no more. He had to rid himself of the frequent
embarrassment in the hands of the NLC. Thus, the government resorted to
weakening the ‘monster’ it
created. According to the bill sent to the National Assembly, the
President stated: “ Today, the world is a different place. The East- West
divide and the attendant Cold War are gone. Democracy has taken over the
patterns of political and other engagements and interactions in the
global system. It is in this light that I am sending this Bill to amend
the Trade Unions Act in order to promote the democratisation of labour,
further strengthen it, enhance choice for all Nigerians in the true
spirit of the constitution.”
Observers
thus wonder, what is the constitutionality of Obasanjo’s action? Could
the officials of the NLC be right to say that the President can not
proscribe the congress? And what are the international policies
supporting both sides on this issue?
Jiti
Ogunye, labour attorney, in an interview, reacted to these questions,
saying: “The relevant provision of the constitution says there is a right
of association. In a sense, therefore, the government by its bill for the
purpose of amending the Trade Union Act, wants to go back to the old era
where industrial unions will be free to belong to any labour centre of
their choice. In principle, that is how it should be, but Obasanjo’s
motive is another issue entirely.”
Ogunye added: “Going by the
International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions, there is no basis
for forcing worker organisations to work together in one central labour
organisation.” The ILO simply frowns at the system here in Nigeria as it
recommends democratic practices amongst labour organisations.
The
President, who had flagrantly flouted the ILO convention when it suited
him as a military administrator, has now suddenly woken up to the current
realities as a democrat and now wants to democratise labour even when he
leaves very little room for democratic principles in the manner he
governs the country, particularly his failure or refusal to consult
stakeholders on major
national issues.
The
Obasanjo’s government in conjunction with the ILO had set up a committee
to review Nigeria’s labour laws to confirm with international standards
but the President in his usual manner has refused to wait for the report
of the committee, instead he is now taking the backdoors to sponsor a
bill at the National Assembly to cripple the national labour movement.
Ogunye
further said that the reform which Obasanjo seeks is generating so much
resentment because ”what we are witnessing has little to do reforming trade union laws in
order to make them stronger, but rather the amendment Obasanjo
desperately seeks is a vindictive strategy meant to disempower labour and
make it impotent in the face of anti-worker policies being implemented by
him”.
According
to him, the NLC maintains
that government’s might cannot break workers’ unity since the decision to
come together under one umbrella is a thing of the mind.
Giving
support to the NLC is one of its international affiliates, the
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), based in
Brussels, Belgium. It described the plan to decentralise the NLC as a vindictive
action against labour over its unflinching opposition to incessant
petroleum price hikes.
The
NLC, currently, is not in this struggle alone as its senior counterpart,
the Trade Union Congress (TUC), which had agitated for recognition for
almost three decades, is
practically frowning at the bill because of the non-automatic check-off
dues included in it.
In a
statement by the General
Secretary of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria,
(ASCSN), an affiliate of the TUC, Comrade Solomon Onaghinon, the union
said: “By proposing to expunge the automatic check-off system from the
labour laws, the bill is capable of being interpreted as a deliberate
ploy by the government to weaken the unions financially.”
Onaghinon, who is also the national
treasure of the TUC, added: “When automatic check-off dues are abolished
and trade unions are to affiliate to international labour centres, they
will become vulnerable and dependent on foreign donors, and besides,
military generals, who have illegally amassed public wealth for their
private purposes, will find the trade unions fertile grounds for their
unpatriotic project against an all civilian government hereafter.”
Labour,
right now, has its faith anchored on the Legislature to deliver it, like
God delivered Daniel from the Lion’s den, from Obasanjo’s antics. NLC
spokes person Owei Lakemfa is however optimistic that the federal
lawmakers would not be a tool in the destruction of Labour.
“I am
not sure Senators are for the destruction of viable institutions like the
NLC, just because the President is angry today. Nigerians can’t be ruled
by the temperament of an individual”, he said.
For
now, public opinion is markedly on the side of Labour, a body that the
people have come to see as their last resort in the fight for a just and
equitable society.
Since
the beginning of the second term of the Obasanjo administration, not a
few Nigerians believe that the National Assembly members, who are supposed to be the
representatives of the people, are a willing tool in the hands of the President on the issues of
crucial national importance, no matter how unpopular and anti-people such
issues might be, thus making Nigerians to see the Labour as their voice
and soul. Yet, the onus lies on the legislators to prove, at least for
once, that they are on the side of the people, to demonstrate the
principle of representative democracy, which is a true separation of
powers. “The harm could only be imagined if the legislators dance along
with the Executive in amending the Trade Union Act. I hope not”, says one
of the union activists.
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