Deregulation Of Wages: Workers Insist On Collective Bargaining
Written by Lemmy Ughegbe and Terhemba Daka (Abuja), Ikenna Onyekwelu (Abakaliki)
Nigeria Guardian Sunday Magazine
THE Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) were at daggers drawn over reports of the passage of a bill believed to have moved wages matters to the concurrent list from the Exclusive List. The TUC, at some point, issued a one-week ultimatum to the Senate to clarify its position on the status of minimum wage on the Exclusive or concurrent List “to avoid confusion.”
Barely three weeks ago, NLC and TUC took a swipe at the National Assembly describing their decision to remove workers’ wages from the exclusive list as “wicked, ridiculous, condemnable and treacherous and vowed to cripple the nation with nationwide strike if the decision was not reversed.
In separate statements signed by NLC’s General Secretary, Peter Ozo-Eson, and TUC General Secretary, Musa Lawal, the duo said “the decision to remove wage from the exclusive list was masterminded by conservative governors and their cohorts in the National Assembly to destabilize the country’s peaceful economic conditions.” They condemned the lawmakers for seeking to move the National Minimum Wage Law from the exclusive list to the concurrent legislative list in the on-going 1999 constitution amendment.
“We at the Congress see the removal of wages from the Exclusive List as an act of treachery masterminded by conservative governors and their cohorts in the Assembly as a decision that would do the polity no good,” Mr. Ozo-Eson. The NLC threatened to mobilise its members to resist the move to scrap the national minimum wage, adding that Congress believed the removal was a deliberate and calculated attempt to move the workers from the “working poor to the slave-poor.”
Mr. Ozo-Eson said the Labour unions were convinced it was a conscious ploy by some people to truncate the on-going electioneering process, urging the lawmakers to hearken to the voice of reason and the voice of the people by urgently retracing their steps as the consequences of their decision would be dire for the nation. Labour, at an emergency meeting of its National Executive Council (NEC) convened on October 27, 2014 threatened to mobilise workers for action to resist the decision.
The TUC, in its statement, said the purported step taken by the lawmakers would create more hardship and pave the way for all forms of violent reactions by workers and Nigerians. “We have monitored with keen interest the ridiculous attempts by some elements within the Upper House of the National Assembly to truncate the economic stability of the nation and create more hardship in the land,” the TUC said.
According to the congress, it was clear the lawmakers and their collaborators have had their say, but the workers are determined to ensure that they do not have their way. The Nigerian Senate, it said, was feigning ignorance of the principle and concept of the minimum wage as practised in decent societies all over the world, pointing out that the timing of the decision, so close to the preparation towards general elections in 2015, might actually be an attempt by the unscrupulous characters to provoke a national industrial crisis. The TUC warned that, unless the Senate reversed its decision immediately, it would not hesitate to mobilise the Nigerian workers to resort to the option of a national industrial action.
The National Conference, during its diliberation, also affirmed the position of wages on the Exclusive List. NLC and TUC warned that taking wages into the concurrent list would amount to empowering the employer “to define and interpret the provisions of the law as he/she understands them. In other words, minimum wage would be left to the idiosyncrasies of employers, who are almost re-introducing archaic and long forgotten slave labour with its negative connotation of exploitation and deprivation,” they warned.
Whereas NLC and TUC have intensified their warning against removing wages from the Exclusive List, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha, has come out to state that both legislative houses of the National Assembly have retained the subject matter on the Exclusive List. Ihedioha, who is also chairman of the adhoc Committee on Constitution Amendment, denied media reports that the panel removed Labour from the exclusive legislative list.
In a terse statement made available to newsmen in Abuja, he said: “It has become necessary to clarify that the Conference report of the Constitution Review Committee recently adopted by the Senate and House of Representatives did not remove Labour from the Exclusive Legislative List.,”
The Deputy Speaker further explained that the Senate had earlier put Labour on the Concurrent List, but the House retained it in the Exclusive List. He said: “During the Harmonisation of the reports from the two chambers, the Conference Committee adopted the House version and retained Labour on the Exclusive List.”
According to him, both the Senate and the House of Representatives have now adopted the Conference Committee Report, which retained Labour on the Exclusive Legislative List.
“We are at a loss as to where the false and misleading information on this matter emanated from,” he said.
But the Labour bodies are not so persuaded believing that Ihedioha’s statement may be a mere subterfuge to calm frayed nerves, while quietly legislating the said wage into the concurrent list.
Indeed, a successful fourth amendment might put paid to the current status of the National wage. The position of both the NLC and the TUC is that such amendment would be “extremely retrogressive and return the Nigerian worker to the era of slave labour. Besides, such amendment will breach the convention on Labour by turning the wage determination process in the states into a legislative exercise instead of the universal best practice model of collective bargaining, as enshrined in the ILO Convention 154 on Collective Bargaining, as well as Convention 98 on the Right to Organised and Collective Bargaining. The unions and their member, therefore, hope to insist on the principle of collective bargaining, based on a national minimum wage. This, according to them, is a universal rule that must remain applicable in Nigeria.
YET, there is the flip side. The threat by the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, (ASCSN) to join with other groups alongside the TUC to challenge the attempt by the National Assembly to decentralise wages and related matters, does not seem to reflect objectivity on the issue.
In the first place, the very idea of leaving wages and Labour issues under the Exclusive List instead of the Concurrent, does not respect the federal structure. The threat of strikes to retain the anomalous constitutional creation therefore fails to consider the merits of the proposal by the legislature. What labour focused on was just the national minimum wage and not the various reasons that necessitate mobility of labour. ASCSN National President, Mr. Alade Kaigama, actually described the move by the national assembly as an attempt to make Nigerians poorer by using legislation to undermine the national minimum wage. He compared the national minimum wage to the monthly salary of members of the national assembly. But wage disparity for various categories of workers in the nation is not all there is to the constitutional amendment as it concerns wag and labour issues.
It would be recalled that delegates to the recent National Conference rejected a proposal for the increment of the National Minimum Wage to about N40,000 basically because every wage must reflect on productivity. Chaired by the former Head of Service of the Federation, Ebere Okeke, the conference Committee on Public Service had recommended that, because the minimum wage was fixed at a level just above the poverty level, it was incumbent on the Federal Government to ensure that the stipend of every citizen was retained above poverty line, thereby arguing that the issue be left in the Exclusive Legislative List. But during debates on the report, some delegates started calling for an increase to the minimum wage.
Right from the immediate post independence Nigeria, the issue of wage increases and attempts to make it a matter for centralised legislation have been at the root of strikes and industrial actions. In the often-emotive displays that attend the strikes, the determinants of salaries and wages are never closely considered.
Dr. Richard Egbule, Chairman, national incomes and wages commission, in a paper a he delivered at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru; early this year, declared that salaries or wages “by whatever name known, is significant in any economy.” While stressing that wages constitute the life-blood of the economy, Egbule noted that the fact that government is a dominant player in the economy makes it the centre of focus simply because “personnel emoluments constitute a large proportion of government budget and expenditure.” For that reason, he stated, wage-related issues become common causes of industrial relations instability in the country. However he disclosed that in both theory and practice, three major approaches drive wage fixing and review including initiative of government, collective bargaining and wage indexation. On the various factors that determine wage level, the chairman enumerated the following: cost of living or inflationary trend; industrial relativity; industrial relations pressure; ability to pay; productivity; moral consideration and government policy.
From the foregoing, it could be seen that organised labour’s insistence on using government policy alone to determine wages, does not address the germane issues. From 1945 when the Railway Workers Union staged a successful strike action, strikes and industrial actions have become ready weapon to force a centralist approach. In 1974 when the Udoji fiscal review commission came up with a general review of salaries and wages, other determinants, especially ability to pay and productivity remained absent in consideration of wages.
In 1982 teachers in the country went on strike to press for higher pay at a period the federal government was embarking on austerity measures. What was lost on the striking teachers was the geopolitical distribution of productivity and dysfunction of religion. For instance in the northern part of the country where there is a flexible work environment and less number of pupils, instead of equitability, morality was the basis for involving teachers from that area in the strike. Even at the promulgation of the minimum wage policy, some states in the country especially those from the South East refused to pay contending that they were not obligated to have the federal government impose its policies on them. The same problem was encountered when lecturers in state-owned tertiary institutions wanted to be placed on salaries at par with their federal counterparts. The confusion of leaving the issue of wages in the Exclusive list defeats the federal structure of the country especially in the light of creation of additional states after 1983 some of which viability has continued to be a matter of serious debate.
The effect of lumping wage issues together under the exclusive list includes downsizing and backward integration. There is also the loss of incentive, as workers tend to believe that wage increments and promotion must come their way regardless of their output. However placing wage and labour related issues on the concurrent list would challenge states to look inwards and explore areas of greater aptitude. One other point that the proposal seeks to raise is that government is not the major employer of labour, as such, labour-related issues should not be the exclusive preserve of the Federal Government.
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| Nigerian workers march against reductions in fuel subsidies. |
Nigeria Guardian Sunday Magazine
THE Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) were at daggers drawn over reports of the passage of a bill believed to have moved wages matters to the concurrent list from the Exclusive List. The TUC, at some point, issued a one-week ultimatum to the Senate to clarify its position on the status of minimum wage on the Exclusive or concurrent List “to avoid confusion.”
Barely three weeks ago, NLC and TUC took a swipe at the National Assembly describing their decision to remove workers’ wages from the exclusive list as “wicked, ridiculous, condemnable and treacherous and vowed to cripple the nation with nationwide strike if the decision was not reversed.
In separate statements signed by NLC’s General Secretary, Peter Ozo-Eson, and TUC General Secretary, Musa Lawal, the duo said “the decision to remove wage from the exclusive list was masterminded by conservative governors and their cohorts in the National Assembly to destabilize the country’s peaceful economic conditions.” They condemned the lawmakers for seeking to move the National Minimum Wage Law from the exclusive list to the concurrent legislative list in the on-going 1999 constitution amendment.
“We at the Congress see the removal of wages from the Exclusive List as an act of treachery masterminded by conservative governors and their cohorts in the Assembly as a decision that would do the polity no good,” Mr. Ozo-Eson. The NLC threatened to mobilise its members to resist the move to scrap the national minimum wage, adding that Congress believed the removal was a deliberate and calculated attempt to move the workers from the “working poor to the slave-poor.”
Mr. Ozo-Eson said the Labour unions were convinced it was a conscious ploy by some people to truncate the on-going electioneering process, urging the lawmakers to hearken to the voice of reason and the voice of the people by urgently retracing their steps as the consequences of their decision would be dire for the nation. Labour, at an emergency meeting of its National Executive Council (NEC) convened on October 27, 2014 threatened to mobilise workers for action to resist the decision.
The TUC, in its statement, said the purported step taken by the lawmakers would create more hardship and pave the way for all forms of violent reactions by workers and Nigerians. “We have monitored with keen interest the ridiculous attempts by some elements within the Upper House of the National Assembly to truncate the economic stability of the nation and create more hardship in the land,” the TUC said.
According to the congress, it was clear the lawmakers and their collaborators have had their say, but the workers are determined to ensure that they do not have their way. The Nigerian Senate, it said, was feigning ignorance of the principle and concept of the minimum wage as practised in decent societies all over the world, pointing out that the timing of the decision, so close to the preparation towards general elections in 2015, might actually be an attempt by the unscrupulous characters to provoke a national industrial crisis. The TUC warned that, unless the Senate reversed its decision immediately, it would not hesitate to mobilise the Nigerian workers to resort to the option of a national industrial action.
The National Conference, during its diliberation, also affirmed the position of wages on the Exclusive List. NLC and TUC warned that taking wages into the concurrent list would amount to empowering the employer “to define and interpret the provisions of the law as he/she understands them. In other words, minimum wage would be left to the idiosyncrasies of employers, who are almost re-introducing archaic and long forgotten slave labour with its negative connotation of exploitation and deprivation,” they warned.
Whereas NLC and TUC have intensified their warning against removing wages from the Exclusive List, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha, has come out to state that both legislative houses of the National Assembly have retained the subject matter on the Exclusive List. Ihedioha, who is also chairman of the adhoc Committee on Constitution Amendment, denied media reports that the panel removed Labour from the exclusive legislative list.
In a terse statement made available to newsmen in Abuja, he said: “It has become necessary to clarify that the Conference report of the Constitution Review Committee recently adopted by the Senate and House of Representatives did not remove Labour from the Exclusive Legislative List.,”
The Deputy Speaker further explained that the Senate had earlier put Labour on the Concurrent List, but the House retained it in the Exclusive List. He said: “During the Harmonisation of the reports from the two chambers, the Conference Committee adopted the House version and retained Labour on the Exclusive List.”
According to him, both the Senate and the House of Representatives have now adopted the Conference Committee Report, which retained Labour on the Exclusive Legislative List.
“We are at a loss as to where the false and misleading information on this matter emanated from,” he said.
But the Labour bodies are not so persuaded believing that Ihedioha’s statement may be a mere subterfuge to calm frayed nerves, while quietly legislating the said wage into the concurrent list.
Indeed, a successful fourth amendment might put paid to the current status of the National wage. The position of both the NLC and the TUC is that such amendment would be “extremely retrogressive and return the Nigerian worker to the era of slave labour. Besides, such amendment will breach the convention on Labour by turning the wage determination process in the states into a legislative exercise instead of the universal best practice model of collective bargaining, as enshrined in the ILO Convention 154 on Collective Bargaining, as well as Convention 98 on the Right to Organised and Collective Bargaining. The unions and their member, therefore, hope to insist on the principle of collective bargaining, based on a national minimum wage. This, according to them, is a universal rule that must remain applicable in Nigeria.
YET, there is the flip side. The threat by the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, (ASCSN) to join with other groups alongside the TUC to challenge the attempt by the National Assembly to decentralise wages and related matters, does not seem to reflect objectivity on the issue.
In the first place, the very idea of leaving wages and Labour issues under the Exclusive List instead of the Concurrent, does not respect the federal structure. The threat of strikes to retain the anomalous constitutional creation therefore fails to consider the merits of the proposal by the legislature. What labour focused on was just the national minimum wage and not the various reasons that necessitate mobility of labour. ASCSN National President, Mr. Alade Kaigama, actually described the move by the national assembly as an attempt to make Nigerians poorer by using legislation to undermine the national minimum wage. He compared the national minimum wage to the monthly salary of members of the national assembly. But wage disparity for various categories of workers in the nation is not all there is to the constitutional amendment as it concerns wag and labour issues.
It would be recalled that delegates to the recent National Conference rejected a proposal for the increment of the National Minimum Wage to about N40,000 basically because every wage must reflect on productivity. Chaired by the former Head of Service of the Federation, Ebere Okeke, the conference Committee on Public Service had recommended that, because the minimum wage was fixed at a level just above the poverty level, it was incumbent on the Federal Government to ensure that the stipend of every citizen was retained above poverty line, thereby arguing that the issue be left in the Exclusive Legislative List. But during debates on the report, some delegates started calling for an increase to the minimum wage.
Right from the immediate post independence Nigeria, the issue of wage increases and attempts to make it a matter for centralised legislation have been at the root of strikes and industrial actions. In the often-emotive displays that attend the strikes, the determinants of salaries and wages are never closely considered.
Dr. Richard Egbule, Chairman, national incomes and wages commission, in a paper a he delivered at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru; early this year, declared that salaries or wages “by whatever name known, is significant in any economy.” While stressing that wages constitute the life-blood of the economy, Egbule noted that the fact that government is a dominant player in the economy makes it the centre of focus simply because “personnel emoluments constitute a large proportion of government budget and expenditure.” For that reason, he stated, wage-related issues become common causes of industrial relations instability in the country. However he disclosed that in both theory and practice, three major approaches drive wage fixing and review including initiative of government, collective bargaining and wage indexation. On the various factors that determine wage level, the chairman enumerated the following: cost of living or inflationary trend; industrial relativity; industrial relations pressure; ability to pay; productivity; moral consideration and government policy.
From the foregoing, it could be seen that organised labour’s insistence on using government policy alone to determine wages, does not address the germane issues. From 1945 when the Railway Workers Union staged a successful strike action, strikes and industrial actions have become ready weapon to force a centralist approach. In 1974 when the Udoji fiscal review commission came up with a general review of salaries and wages, other determinants, especially ability to pay and productivity remained absent in consideration of wages.
In 1982 teachers in the country went on strike to press for higher pay at a period the federal government was embarking on austerity measures. What was lost on the striking teachers was the geopolitical distribution of productivity and dysfunction of religion. For instance in the northern part of the country where there is a flexible work environment and less number of pupils, instead of equitability, morality was the basis for involving teachers from that area in the strike. Even at the promulgation of the minimum wage policy, some states in the country especially those from the South East refused to pay contending that they were not obligated to have the federal government impose its policies on them. The same problem was encountered when lecturers in state-owned tertiary institutions wanted to be placed on salaries at par with their federal counterparts. The confusion of leaving the issue of wages in the Exclusive list defeats the federal structure of the country especially in the light of creation of additional states after 1983 some of which viability has continued to be a matter of serious debate.
The effect of lumping wage issues together under the exclusive list includes downsizing and backward integration. There is also the loss of incentive, as workers tend to believe that wage increments and promotion must come their way regardless of their output. However placing wage and labour related issues on the concurrent list would challenge states to look inwards and explore areas of greater aptitude. One other point that the proposal seeks to raise is that government is not the major employer of labour, as such, labour-related issues should not be the exclusive preserve of the Federal Government.
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