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Accepting
Opposition: The Trade Union Bill ByDr. Jibo Ibrahim One
of the principal characteristics of democratic governance is the
acceptance by ruling parties that the government has neither the
monopoly of truth or correct policy prescriptions for the country.
Parties in power are therefore expected to listen to and accept as
legitimate the criticisms from opposition groups. These include
political parties, trade unions, civil society organisations, social
movements and so on, who have the right to question, oppose and indeed,
seek to undermine government policies that they believe are not in the
people’s interest. President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Administration has
however always seen opposition in militaristic terms. The President
seems to regard opposition as enemy action that must be crushed by all
possible means. By so doing, the Administration deprives itself of one
of the most effective instruments for positive change in a democracy –
A LISTENING EAR. One
of the clearest manifestations of this unfortunate habit is the
President’s relationship with the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC). It
can be recalled that following last year’s strike organised by the NLC
against arbitrary increase in fuel process, the President addressed the
nation forcefully threatening the NLC for behaving as an opposition
movement. Whether the NLC is, or is not an opposition movement, the NLC
has every constitutional and indeed political right to act as an
opposition movement. It is the organisation that represents the widest,
the most national and the most grassroots linked movement of workers in
this country. In today’s language, it is the leading stakeholder in
the political economy and politics of Indeed,
the issue of the President’s attitude to the NLC, much of which is
related to the petroleum-pricing question, is a good indication of the
democracy deficit of successive Nigerian Governments. Nigerians believe
that the provision of cheap and constant supply of petrol is a
legitimate expectation. Over the past twenty years, successive
governments have made opposing arguments that world prices should be the
main consideration in pricing petrol but have failed to convince
Nigerians that they are right. The expectation that a democratically
elected government would have more of a listening ear to popular
expectations has been shattered by repeated escalation of petrol prices. Nigerians
are particularly incensed because the country has three refining
complexes, which are more than sufficient to meet the needs of the
country, (including supplies through smuggling routes to neighbouring
countries). The refineries have however remained in various states of
disrepair and what Nigerians knew was that the powerful cabals that got
huge contracts to repair them remain unchallenged by the state. It has
been extremely frustrating to Nigerians that for twenty years,
successive regimes were unable to guarantee the supply of cheap petrol
and kerosene, the two essential energy sources for transport and for
cooking. The suspicion of Nigerians is that “state policy” not to
solve this problem is rooted in the continuation of the culture of
unbridled corruption. Promoting democratic governance therefore must
include taking the expectations of the people seriously. It
is in this context that people are concerned about the punitive bill
sent to the National Assembly to amend the Trade Unions Act. It appears
punitive because the central purpose of the bill seems to be to
deregister the NLC because its leadership is considered anti-government.
In a sense, the position of the Government is that the NLC is the
spokesperson of the people, the defender of the helpless and the
champion of the common good so it must be destroyed. The positive image
of the NLC therefore becomes the basis for its destruction. In
his letter to the National Assembly introducing the bill, the Government
claims that since the NLC came into existence during military rule, it
is therefore an undemocratic organisation that goes against current
principles of liberalism. The Government therefore wants to deregister
the NLC and empower the Minister of Labour to establish new labour
centres. The reality however is that even the NLC is not questioning the
right of other labour centres to emerge, what is being questioned the
attempt to deregister the NLC as an existing labour centre. It
should be pointed out that the NLC is not a monopoly as claimed by
Government. Apart from the NLC, there are two other existing and
functional Labour centres in the country. They are the Trade Union
Congress (TUC) and the Congress of Free Trade Union (CFTU). These three
Labour centres actually jointly led the June 2004 strike and protest
against the hike in the prices of petroleum products that Government is
so incensed about. The
Executive bill argues that trade unionism should be “voluntary”. The
truth is that trade unionism is already voluntary in The
bill also seeks to economically cripple unions. It provides that a
worker must give “express consent” before his union due can be
deducted. The worker already consents, but what Government hopes to do
is ask each worker to make written statements through the employer that
his union due be deducted. This way, it hopes to intimidate some workers
out of the union. If a person voluntary belongs to a union, paying union
dues is a basic responsibility of the individual, so why ask the same
worker to go through the bureaucracy of writing to the employer to give
the authorization, which is already implied. The
most serious problem with the proposed bill is the attempt to erode the
constitutionally guaranteed right of workers to strike. The bill states
that even after the worker has voluntarily decided to belong to the
union and given his/her “express consent” that union dues be
deducted, the employer who makes the deduction should pay the union only
if they signs a “No Strike” clause. The intention of the bill
therefore is to force workers to “voluntarily” give up their right
to go on strike. The right to strike; the worker’s right to work or
refuse to work is a fundamental human right. The United Nations, the
International Labour Organisation (ILO) and our country’s constitution
all back these rights. Government should not allow itself propose
legislation that undermine entrenched rights. This entire section
of the bill clearly offends Article 40 of Chapter 4 of our Constitution,
which gives Nigerians the right to freedom of association without
interference. The
bill is so anti-worker that it even contradicts itself. After inserting
a “No strike” clause in industrial relations. It contradicts itself
by inserting another clause that strikes can only occur after two-thirds
of the workers in a ballot agrees to go on strike. The hope of
Government is that it would be too costly and time consuming to organize
ballots for workers whenever there is the need for a strike. This
provision also directly contravenes international human rights
instruments we have committed ourselves to. Finally,
as we stated above, the real purpose of the bill is encapsulated by the
provision that “the Registrar (of trade unions) shall remove from the
register the Nigeria Labour Congress as the only Labour organization in
Nigeria” As the NLC has argued, you do not have to deregister existing
labour centres, to register new ones. When more political parties were
registered two years ago, Government and INEC did not first deregister
the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or any other party that was in
existence. What was simply done was to register new parties in addition
to existing ones. So new Labour centres can exist without the NLC being
deregistered. Government should know that the spirit of Nigerians is irrepressible and even if they succeed in deregistering the NLC, that cannot guarantee industrial and social peace. With the acute crises related to issues such as hunger, shelter, education, electricity, roads, insecurity, growing mass unemployment, corruption, rising fuel prices and poverty, the voices of protest in this country will continue. The ambition of government should be to provide the dividends of democracy and not to shut up the voices of protest. |