Vice President, Nigeria Labour Congress, Issa Aremu, in this interview with ADELANI ADEPEGBA in Abuja, describes employers who maltreat their workers as economic criminals and also talks about efforts being made by the organised unions to improve the welfare of workers in the country
How would you assess the impact of Labour Congress in the country?
As one of the Vice Presidents of the Congress, self assessment is a testy challenge for me. But if you insist, I will say only facts of yesterday and today will explain the impact of labour in Nigeria. Labour movement is as old, if not older than modern Nigeria. We marked the centenary of amalgamation of Nigeria last year. But the first officially recognised trade union in Nigeria is Civil Service Union of Nigeria. It was formed in 1912. To that extent, labour movement is older than amalgamated Nigeria of 1914. Labour was a visible actor in the struggle for independence. Remember the Iva Valley strike of Enugu coal miners of 1949. It was brutally suppressed by Lord Lugard’s colonial police. The criminal killing of these defenseless workers protesting against poor pay and the attendant national outrage armed nationalists like the great Nnamdi Azikiwe with the moral weapon to demand for an end to British colonial rule of exploitation. If you add series of strikes and protests led by indefatigable labour Number 1 man, Micheal Imoudu, of the famous Nigeria Union of Railwaymen, you will then appreciate the historic impact of labour on Nigerian nationhood. I will say NLC has 40 year-rich history of struggles for the improvement of the working and living conditions of the working men and women. Today, we commend some good employers who comply with the Minimum Wage Act for paying their workers decent wage. On the other hand, we condemn some state governments and unscrupulous private employers who shamelessly disregard the nationally prescribed minimum wage. But we often forget who brought about minimum wage? It was NLC. Without the minimum wage act, there would have been no yardstick to separate a genuine modern employer of 2014 from the colonial slave masters of the 16th to 19th century. NLC fought the struggle and commendably won the battle for a national minimum wage at a time when it was dangerous and not even fashionable to do so. In 1981, under the leadership of Comrade Hassan Sunmonu, the first pioneer President of the Congress, the first Federal Minimum Wage Act known in history was enacted by the Second Republic National Assembly. Ten years after in 1992, NLC under the leadership of late Comrade Pascal Bafyau (May Allah grant him eternal rest) improved on the then existing minimum pay. Comrade Adams Oshomhole, President of NLC for two terms under the present dispensation equally commendably got another minimum wage agreement in 2000; Comrade Adams brought some innovations; he separated Federal minimum and got another one for some oil rich states such as Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa. The current leadership of the NLC under Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar has also made its impact with significant improvement contained in the National Minimum Wage Act of 2010 signed by President Goodluck Jonathan after two years of negotiations and a two-day strike. So in terms of service to the members, NLC impact is real. We can review the effects of these verifiable wage achievements on the living standard of workers in the face of Naira devaluation, rising inflation and unemployment. But it is not because of lack of efforts on the part of organised labour. Don’t also forget the NLC was in the forefront of the struggle against military dictatorship and for democracy.
Nigerian workers are disappointed that the NLC is not seen to be doing anything about their plight. Have you abandoned the masses?
NLC is made up of over 42 industrial unions covering various sectors of the economy. 2014 can be said to be the year of workers’ protests led by various industrial unions. Unions in electricity, medical and health sectors, petroleum sector and education have waged series of struggle to defend their members. Without the resistance of national union of electricity workers, thousands of disengaged electricity workers after privatisation would not have got such significant severance pay, gratuity and pension schemes. Today, we are all lamenting the lack of electricity supply after privatisation. But National Union of Electricity Employees led by Dr. Mansur Musa and its General Secretary, Comrade Joe Ajaero, had warned about the danger of wholesome privatisation without enough power generation and public investment in the sector. In my sector, textile and garment, our consistent advocacy over the years has led to Federal Government intervention fund and a new initiative by the Federal Executive Council recently to revive the industry. One of the major achievements of my union, National Union of Textile and Garment Workers like other unions, is institutionalisation of collective bargaining process. We just concluded national negotiation between the government and the Nigeria Textile Garment and Tailoring Employers Association which has improved basic earning in the industry. 2014 agreement is the 44th national collective agreement since 1979, covering wages, housing, medical, transport allowances, gratuity and pensions. Yearly review of collective agreement in the industry shows the vibrancy of collective bargaining in our sector. Through the instrument of collective bargaining, we have increased basic minimum wage cumulatively in our sector by over 50 per cent within the past four years. The increase is well over 75 per cent if we calculate from 2004 to 2014. As I’m talking to you, judiciary workers are on legitimate strike over the need for direct budgetary allocations in line with court pronouncement. Recently, new medical bill was signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan. That was due to the struggle of medical and health workers union. The Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria have been in the forefront demanding for the passage of Petroleum Industry Bill, since 1999. So if you ask me, as long as the affiliate unions of the NLC are fighting, NLC cannot be said to have abandoned workers. On the contrary, it is some state governments, some agencies of Federal Government and some unscrupulous private employers that have abandoned their workforce through lack of respect for collective agreements freely entered into with the unions. Employers who disregard provisions of labour laws with respect to payments of salaries, recruitment, permanence and security of jobs are those who abandoned their workers. That is unacceptable. Unions including NLC are victims of these employers. Employers who treat workers as disposable items to hire and fire them at will and casualise their workforce are criminals. Nigeria labour laws say you must formalise any employment after three months with extension of additional three months on probation. Labour law does not say that you keep employees in perpetual non-confirmation (of job status). Sadly, some employers, especially Asian investors keep workers for years without appointment letters spelling out their legitimate earnings. Most of our banks outsource work force like 16th century slave traders hundreds of years after the abolition of slave trade. On the part of labour, we have been leading protests campaigning against precarious work. We demand for decent work that is secure, well remunerated and pensionable. The culprits are also governments that devalue Naira thus eroding the value of wages that are not enough in the first instance. Those who abandon workers are the state governments and federal agencies that refuse to pay salaries as and when due but have enough to finance political rallies of dubious value.
But the workers believe that the NLC has lost its mandate by not fighting enough to ensure that they got their December salaries? A lot of federal and state workers are still being owed salaries.
Your question is wrongly directed. Unions including NLC do not pay salaries. Unions bargained for wage increases, the burden is for employers including governments to pay. The motto of NLC reads; Labour creates wealth. The objectives of the NLC are to ensure that the wealth generated in the world of work by working men and women is fairly shared through collective bargaining that ensures fair share. In any case, it is the unions that raised the alarm about non-payment of salaries on the eve of Christmas and the new year. After the union pressures, most employers quickly paid. Delayed payment of salaries, I maintain, is wage theft. It is an economic crime. Some of these employers are the same politicians who duly paid all their delegates for their political parties’ conventions, yet find it difficult to pay the legitimate earnings of workers as and when due.
Almost all the states have failed to pay the minimum wage and the NLC is not seen to be doing anything about it. Why?
You have to ask questions based on facts. The truth is that significant number of states and private sector have also paid. Some and indeed many even pay above minimum wage. Minimum wage is not the same as general wage review. It is the minimum below which no worker is paid. As I have told you earlier, NLC has fought for this right to minimum pay as far back as 1981, some 33 years ago. President Shehu Shagari signed the first Minimum Wage Act in 1981. There was no minimum wage in Britain until April 1, 1999. It was introduced by Tony Blair, as the campaign policy for Labour Party in the 1997 election. That was some 11 years after President Shehu Shagari was compelled to sign the first minimum wage in 1981 after a two-day general strike. So we cannot be reminded about the need to implement what we fought for. If you ask me, the demand of labour goes beyond full implementation of the existing minimum wage. The urgent task before the NLC is the review of the existing minimum wage which is due anyway, after five years. At N18,000 national minimum wage and an exchange rate of N150 to $1, Nigerian workers were earning approximately $120 per month in 2010, the year we signed this agreement. However with the devaluation of the currency and current exchange rate of almost N200 to $1, minimum wage has dropped to as low as $90 dollars per month, a shortfall of $30. When we take into consideration the rising inflation, it is clear the real income of the working people has sharply declined by over 50 per cent within the last four years. President Barrack Obama recently increased minimum wage from $7 (about N1,400) to $10 (N2,000) per hour. For eight hours, the lowest pay for an American worker is N16,000 at N200 to $1. China pays $300 minimum wage per month which is about N60,000. Nigeria now has working poor whose monthly pay can hardly take them home coupled with the unstable macroeconomic policies of the Federal Governments that erode the earnings of workers. We cannot drive the country to the path of sustainable recovery and development without adequate pay for the workers. Indeed, labour will judge all the presidential candidates as well as governorship and legislative candidates in 2015 in terms of their attitudes and programmes on the principle and detail of minimum wage in particular and compensation for working people in general. Workers are not asking for some patronising and insulting “stomach” infrastructure. Rather, workers demand for legitimate return on legitimate work done, just as investors earn profits and dividends on capital. Pope John Paul II once said (and I agree with him) that: “A just wage for the worker is the ultimate test of whether any economic system is functioning justly.”
Before, NLC seemed apolitical but it now appears that it has fully embraced politics. People say that the NLC campaigns for politicians for financial gains. Is NLC supposed to be a political organisation?
Again, try and get it right. NLC has not been apolitical. NLC is however not partisan. Being political does not mean you are necessarily partisan. I told you that our founding fathers such as late Michael Imoudu, Wahaab Goodluck, joined the nationalists to fight for independence. That was a patriotic political act. Micheal Imoudu served on the National Executive Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons. NCNC was the first nationalist Nigerian political party from 1944 to 1966. The party was formed in 1944 by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Herbert Macaulay. Herbert Macaulay was its first president, while Azikiwe was its first secretary. The labour movements formed part of the NCNC. Workers are not just factors of production. We are also citizens who know that economic pressures without political power means perpetuation of the rule of the rich and in the case of Nigeria, the rule of the parasites and day-light armed robbers. Great unionists like Frank Kokori, the late Bafyau were unapologetically political as well as partisan with all the consequences of that choice. Frank Kokori was thrown into jail for fighting for the sanctity of June 12 election.
That was a political action by a unionist in defence of democracy. NLC as an institution cannot be partisan but as a collective (body), it has the right to be political; make demands on candidates and screen candidates to know those who represent the ideal of ILO’s vision of prosperity for all. In 1999 and 2003, NLC commendably organised a presidential parley to make the presidential elections of those years issues-driven. Those were political but not partisan actions.
It even went as far as endorsing Kayode Fayemi for re-election during the last election in Ekiti.
NLC can and indeed has been encouraging its members not just to vote but be available to be voted for. My union for instance as an affiliate of NLC produced Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, the current remarkably successful comrade Governor of Edo state. NLC and Trade Union Council openly endorsed Comrade Oshiomhole. Comrade Aminu Suleiman and Chairman of the House Committee on Education of the Federal House of Representatives from Kano State is my Deputy General Secretary in the textile union. Comrade Peter Akpatason, a member of House of Representatives from Edo State was one time National President of NUPENG. Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State, before he became a renegade governor, got the endorsement of both the NLC and TUC under the Labour Party. In record time of four years, he won election after being denied his right in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. There are varying views of the role of labour in politics even within the NLC. Some unionists believe we should be apolitical, as you observed. Others think we must make political choices. The debate is long settled that we cannot be politically indifferent just as employers. NLC is not partisan but its members are free to be politically partisan if they choose to. There was a time when business groups openly endorsed the Presidency of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and even made money available for its campaign. In the present dispensation, the major parties are financed openly by businesses. Some people will even argue that if churches and mosques are openly political, why not trade unions that are socio and political democratic organisations? NLC has always been political anyway. We formed the current Labour Party. Its maiden name was Social Democratic Party. At its 2001 convention, its name was changed to Labour Party. During the General Ibrahim Babangida ill-fated political transition, NLC floated a Labour Party that was among the leading 11 political parties that were denied registration. Maybe the question should be why did we endorse Fayemi of another political party instead of the candidate of Labour Party? Devil is in the details of that answer which outsiders like you might not comprehend but which our members appreciated. Certainly NLC has the right of endorsement but must prepare for the challenges of winning or losing in that endorsement. In the US, our counterpart union, AFLCIO, openly endorsed Barack Obama in his two elections for his pro-labour policies including increase in minimum wage and compassionate immigration policy. Of course you know in Britain, Labour Party was formed by the labour movement, TUC, in the 19th century. Labour always endorses Labour Party candidates. But you know it is not all the time labour movement wins in any contest. Endorsement in Ekiti failed but it worked in Ondo and Edo states. In all this, the independence of NLC as a trade union remains intact. If our endorsed candidates fail to meet workers’ obligation, trade unions will still fight them as their primary duties.
What criteria do you consider before you endorse candidates because some of the politicians that the NLC endorsed in the past have embarked on anti-labour policies. Doesn’t that bother the congress?
NLC is a democratic organisation. Its objectives are to advance the welfare of workers. Whoever wants to generate wealth for Nigeria, create mass jobs for millions of unemployed persons willing to endure decent work, guarantee security of lives and property naturally has the sympathy of all Nigerians, not necessarily labour alone.
The NLC General Secretary, Mr. Peter Ozo-Eson, recently said that the rich don’t pay tax in Nigeria. How did the NLC arrive at this conclusion?
Everybody will arrive at that same conclusion. If the rich pay tax, you will not have this appalling widening gap between the few rich (persons) and the poor who are in the majority in Nigeria. You need to see various reports dealing with non-payments of taxes, tax evasions and tax avoidance by multinationals and local and foreign capital. In a country with as many as 80 million housing deficit, few build unoccupied houses in choice cities and put them under lock and key because they do not pay ground rents. Poor workers cannot engage in tax evasions because through pay as you earn, taxes are paid at the collection of low salaries.
One other reason why Nigerians believe that the NLC has failed the people is because of how Chinese, Lebanese, Indian, Israeli and other Asian companies treat Nigerians like slaves in their land.
I agree with you that NLC can certainly do more to fight these modern day slave traders masquerading as employers. But on October 7, 2014, a number of private sector unions picketed many companies as part of the activities to mark ILO Decent Work Day.
Picketing doesn’t seem to be effective as the companies that have been picketed by NLC have not changed and their workers’ welfare has even been worse.
Struggle is not a one-off event but a continuous process. Our slogan is ‘struggle continues.’ In many instances, picketing has been effective. I agree with you that NLC needs to certainly do more because few jobs available are getting precarious.
Nigerians still believe that the NLC sold out during the anti-subsidy removal protests. Is that why the NLC pulled out of the protests sooner than the people expected?
The 2011 national strike/mass protests by both the NLC and TUC reinforced by mass protests by the allies of trade unions in civil society against the prohibitive fuel price hike on the eve of the new year have raised a lot of issues, which are of profound economic, political and social importance for the country. But that shows the impact of labour to the country. First is the significance of the national strike. Just like the strikes of 1988 and 2000, 2011 strike and protests were visible, truly national and global with the participation of some Nigerians in Diaspora. The dimension of the strike was also officially acknowledged to be significant and remarkable with yet to be estimated human-day’s losses. The visibility of this singular strike, its popularity put paid to the official argument that compares the pricing of petroleum product with telecom or aviation service. If the price of any telecom product service had risen even with higher percentages, it would not have provoked a national strike of such dimension. So in our lives today, petroleum is not just another product, it is sensitive and strategic. The strike and protests just like the previous ones introduced unifying issues among the citizenry regardless of their background and persuasions. Ministers were on duty almost 24 hours while the President walked his talk to minimise overseas trips not necessarily on account of cost but in deference to protests by angry populace at home.
Another matter is how NLC deals with the outcome of the strikes/protests. This strike just like the previous ones did not lead to reversal of price increase.
However, the strike made the government return to bargain with the people which it had hitherto refused to do. Labour has rightly insisted that N97 was unilateral and not negotiated; the price reduction nonetheless reflected the gains of the strike. The decision of the trade unions to call off the strikes when government had not reversed the prices to the old price of N65 has rightly elicited mixed feelings just as it did in 1988 and 2000, when equally old rates on all products were not reversed except for kerosene. While some hailed the outcome of the strike and protests as mature, focused and manifestation of capacity of labour and democratic dispensation to resolve conflict, there are those who saw the two outcomes as ‘sellouts.’ Conflict and accommodation are two contradictory but inseparable aspects of industrial relations. This point is often not appreciated by both the governments and critics of unions alike. On the one hand, government sees labour strikes as ‘subversive’ and even at a point ‘sellouts’ to ‘subsidy cabals.’ On the other hand, critics and “emergency” activists and genuine comrades alike who hold instrumentalist notion of trade unions hoping that every strike offers opportunity to ‘upturn’ the system are quick to smear labour. The truth is that unions are neither subversive or sell outs or willing to upturn the system but only striving to protect the working and living conditions of their members within the system.
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Mimiko turned out to be a traitor – Issa Aremu, NLC VP
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