ISAAC AREMU
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.
EmoticonEmoticon