Stop Using Strikes As Political Weapon – Fashola Yesterday,the Lagos State governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, urged workers and labour unions in the country not to always resort to use of illegal strike actions to press home their demands. The governor said this amid rancor that almost marred the annual Worker`s Day rally in Lagos with students and senior staff workers of the Lagos State University, (LASU), and some civil society groups staging protests at the Onikan Stadium, Lagos Island which was the venue of rally. Addressing the rally, Fashola lauded Nigerian workers for their contributions to nation building, said they were the engine of the nation’s development. Fashola described the protest by LASU lecturers as unnecessary, saying the government had been making efforts to resolve the tuition controversy. The governor said: “The mind set must change. There must be a sense of originality and creativity. I have listened here to so many speeches that government needs to do this and that, who really is government? If we do not understand it, am only one member of government, am the leader of government but I am not government.” Harping on the use of strike action as deployed in the country, he said, “So for me, as someday has suggested, that I don’t like strikes, there is nothing offensive to me about strikes, what I have advocated year after year is that the power to strike is very potent weapon and it must be used very sparingly and discretionary and if you use it every day, after a while it would lose its efficacy. “What I do not like is the illegal strikes because your right to strike as a weapon of negotiation is based on the fact that there is genuine trade dispute. “We know that some strikes have gone for things that do not qualify as a trade dispute, that is an illegal strike, so if one group of people supports those kinds of strikes thinking that they make government uncomfortable, ultimately, all of us will suffer. “If we talk about unemployment today, nobody can divorce employment and unemployment with productivity and lack of it. So, every time you shut down the system you are not helping the capacity to employ because you have shut down production. Those really are the issues. “For me we have seen governments lose elections in Nigeria because labour strikes were orchestrated to defeat those governments by one party. But go and check the records of history the party who supported illegal strikes do well after they gain power , the truth is that they did not because it is a whirlwind it will turn back to hunt those who incite it,” he noted
Posted on: Fri, 02 May 2014 06:39:27 +0000
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