ndustrial strikes in Nigeria: who bears the brunt? "NUPENG dey strike, ASSU dey strike, Doctors, NUT, NULGE, ASUP dey strike. With all these strikers wey dey Naija, Naija still no fit win confederation cup...oga ooo!" One wonder why a nation with ministry of labour is always embroiled in workers strike. In recent years, almost all sectors of the economy have experienced workers strike, including the Nigeria Police! For a developing economy like ours, this is tragic. Though there are alternative means of industrial dispute resolution, labour leaders often insist that the only language government understands is STRIKE. Unfortunately, government seems to be losing its understanding of strike, as many strikes go on for months without government action. Being a dynamic relationship, there are bound to be conflict between employer and employee. The management will always want improved service while the labour will keep demanding for better welfare package, thus the need for mechanism to resolve the conflicting interest amicable without tampering production. The goal is not to avoid conflicts but to resolve them swiftly and completely. If the Alternative to Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms were effective, the incessant workers down tool that has doted our economy for years would have been checked. The flow chain of dispute resolution moves from INTERNAL SETTLEMENT MECHANISM in which both parties meet and sort out issues to CONCILIATION where a third party would attempt to bring the parties to a dispute together and help them to reach a mutually acceptable solution MEDIATION is another option whereby a third party takes an active role (more so than in conciliation), usually making recommendations for the resolution of the dispute, they can move to ARBITRATION where a third party would make a binding decision on an issue on which the parties cannot agree. In Nigeria there is an Industrial Arbitration panel and then a National Industrial Court which is the highest ruling body on industrial dispute. Unfortunately, only a few dispute leave the flow chain with settlement, most leave frustrated and opt for strike. This ADR model has been used successfully in now industrialised climes when they used to be plagued with industrial strikes. If it worked in the US, France, Italy et al, why not Naija? The answer is simple, the habit of employers(government) of reneging on agreement, flouting arbitration rulings with impunity and high handednes leave workers with no alternative than to down tool. And when the tools are down, the brunt is borne by the masses. The government functionaries do not use the public hospitals, have barrels of fuel in reserve and their children school abroad thus they give no damn about strikes. The effect of the million man hour lost from strike is ultimately borne by the masses directly or indirectly. It is high time we adopt and make ADRs work or we create an alternative measure that would really touch the ruling elites(the employers
Posted on: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 13:16:31 +0000
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