Joint Action Front (JAF) The Joint Action Front, JAF, has been playing a major role within the Nigerian labour movement for the past ten years. Its links to the official trade unions, its links to ASUU, and its links to several other organized working class organizations, put it in a strategic position in the Nigerian labour movement. All general strikes called over the past 14 years of civil rule have been called with its participation and – on paper – under the banner of LASCO, Labour and Civil Society Coalition. LASCO is made up of the leadership of the NLC, TUC and pro-Labour organisations. However, although it is the platform created by the leadership of labour to call strikes, when it comes to calling them off it does so without any input from JAF. JAF is the coalition of pro-labour organizations within LASCO and the leadership of JAF is in fact the nominal leadership of LASCO. Apart from the general strikes, JAF has been invited on several occasions by the leadership of the trade unions to participate in various strikes, from doctors’ strikes, to teachers’ strikes, to ASUU strikes, to the struggles of the electricity (PHCN) workers, to the struggles of the unorganized workers and poor in general. JAF over the years has been filling a vacuum left by the leadership of labour, in spite of its small size and structure. And it has been attracting the youth and the advanced layers of the Nigerian working class due to its radical stance. Had the leadership of the Labour Party maintained such stance, the party would have attracted millions into its fold. JAF played a major role in putting pressure on the leadership of labour to declare the January 2012 general strike. It is on record that the JAF protest march organized in Lagos on January 3, 2012 put the leadership of the unions under a lot of pressure. And JAF’s open criticisms of the NLC and TUC leaders on the way they called off the strike still has an effect on the labour leadership. No doubt, JAF will play a major role in the impending movement of the working class and youth in Nigeria. However, it is clear that activism alone is not enough. There is the urgent need for the political forces of the working class in Nigeria to start getting organized. JAF can play a role in organizing these forces and starting the processing of building the Nigerian working class political alternative within the labour movement. Interestingly, the recent convention of JAF held in January 2014 resolved that the much publicised system change in its programmatic demands cannot be anything but a change from the present capitalist misery to a new system based on socialism...
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 13:45:34 +0000
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