Workers' Day: A Critical Review of the Political Role of Labour Leadership

By

Kola Ibrahim

Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

Kmarx4live@yahoo.com

Events leading up to this year's May day in Nigeria again place a central challenge before the labour movement to lead a campaign to end poverty in Nigeria. In many states (except Abuja where the presence of Oshiomhole changed the mood), the Workers' Day only was only made a ritual without much enthusiasm by workers and the poor which further confirms the crisis facing working class people in Nigeria. The issue of the political role of labour movement is further underlined by the position of labour movement on the one year anniversary of the current government. Despite the enormous strength of the labour movement and the gigantic struggles it has waged in the past eight years, we must ask why it has not achieved a significant better living for the working masses of Nigeria. The essence of this write-up is to look at the economic and political policies of the labour leadership in the past eight years and to see how the struggle for a better society  can be achieved in Nigeria with labour movement at its head. While one recognizes the historic struggle of labour leadership, it is necessary to draw out the limitations and the task ahead.

While workers in the country are paid poverty wages, politicians are paid hundreds and even millions as salaries and emoluments; for instance, the salary of a ward councilor is almost five times that of a senior civil servant in a south-western state. In many states, workers are paid less than N10,000 minimum wage. At the central level, legislators continue to take home millions as emoluments. According to revenue mobilization committee, the salary increase for politicians is predicated on the fact that there is inflation and the cost of living has gone up in the country. In the first instance, this argument confirm the failure of leadership in Nigeria. It is funny that the same political class (through its greed) that destroyed the nation's economy are the one now turning around to use their failure as excuse to turn public resources to their personal estates through "the rule of law". Furthermore, a political class that has morality will even ensure that there is less disparity in the wealth distribution, such that there will be enough to develop the nation. What the revenue mobilization committee has not told us is how inflation and cost of living can be lowered for the majority of the citizens who are living in penury when salaries and emoluments of political office holders go up astronomically. Another very ridiculous argument is that salary increase for politicians will help curb treasury looting. In other words, this committee is substituting legal for illegal looting since it believes the greed instinct of politicians can be curbed by "legally" diverting public resources to private accounts of politicians. And it should be noted that this committee  claims to be the "conscience of the nation" when it comes to financial accountability. This committee has just confirmed my long held belief that the current set of political class will only substitute one form of plundering the nation's wealth for another, and it will never move the nation forward. It is more so ridiculous that the self-styled servant leader has not rejected the jumbo pay.

 

But this obscene scenario could only happen in this country because the labour movement, which today is the central mobilizing structure of struggle for poor Nigerians, has failed to recognize its historic duty. The strength of the labour movement to provide a political alternative to the present rotten, corrupt, capitalist political class has been clearly shown through the seven successful general strikes organized against the anti-poor, neo-liberal Obasanjo government. But, rather than use its enormous strength to build a political alternative for the country, the labour leadership in the country prefer to maintain a passive attitude towards political struggle. What this has translated into is a political collaborationist policy of many state labour leaders who use the excuse of political impartiality to become sycophants to reigning but ruining state governments. The central labour leaders on the other hands has adopted a policy of 'strategic partnership" with the Yar'Adua government, which in all intent and purposes is not ready to move the country forward. The result of this policies of both local and national labour leadership is the frustration being expressed daily on the faces of poor working people of Nigeria. While poor masses appreciate the gains of the seven general strikes, many of them are beginning to lose hope in the possibility of any opposition challenging the madness of leadership in this country.

 

The past policies of the labour leadership is a clear indication that the labour movement in the country is not prepared to serve as a political alternative to the current rot going on in the country which has ensured obscene wealth for a super-rich one percent of the nation's population while 70 percent of the population are living in penury despite unimaginable wealth that had accrued to the purse of the country. How else could one describe the failure of the labour leadership when one looks at the disposition of labour leadership to some national issues. Take for instance the labour leadership's positions on privatization, retrenchment, pension reform, wage increment and political collaboration. While labour leadership condemns (not actually fight) retrenchment, it finds it comfortable to be part of privatization committee. But the reality is that one of the central aim of privatization is to reduce production cost and increase workers' exploitation through retrenchment, which will afford the business class to amass unprecedented wealth. In this country, privatization has meant workers' woe as thousands of workers are thrown out of job while those working are threatened with sack if they do not accept management's style that tend to worsen their working conditions. It should be noted that the highest level of retrenchment was achieved mostly through privatization exercise of Obasanjo's government. But the labour movement could not fight privatization, even in the public service, because it has accepted the basis for workers' retrenchment which is privatization.

 

It is funny that labour leadership has found itself romancing with the argument of the business class that privatization ensure efficient management of the economy. But in actual fact, privatization the world over has meant official looting of public resources because it means transfer of public resources, made with people's sweat to the private concern at rock bottom prices. Aside the fact that privatization itself is corruption, the process of privatization all over the world - from Russia to CIS, Britain, Brazil, South Africa and Nigeria - has been accompanied by unprecedented corruption, bribery and nepotism because it gives the capitalist class cheap access to unmerited wealth, therefore, there is scramble, both legal and illegal, to have access to this largess by all capitalist class. Furthermore, privatization has never served the poor because it make social service available to the highest bidders while leading up to unemployment, job losses, wealth inequalities, low standard of living, among others. The Nigerian example is instructive. In the telecoms sector, which is seen as the success story of privatization and indeed capitalism, there has been unprecedented shortchanging of the masses. Between 1999 and 2007, the private telecoms operators amassed up to a trillion naira as profit, but they directly employ less than one percent of the workforce while young, educated Nigeria are made to serve as poor sellers of there product – a job which hardly lift them out of poverty. In fact, some of these private telecoms companies were given tax break for more than five years, yet Nigeria's telecommunication service is the costliest in the world. Despite their huge wealth, these telecoms companies still rely on NITEL facilities (a company claimed to be collapse).

 

The labour leadership has failed to realize this clear fact that privatization, as a cardinal objective of capitalism, has not lifted humanity and cannot lift a poor economy like Nigeria out of underdevelopment. While labour sometime condemns privatization, it is mainly done in a piecemeal and confused manner. For instance, while it condemned the sale of refineries to some individuals, it fails to condemn privatization as a whole and even demand for the immediate nationalization of the oil industry under the democratic control of the working people themselves,  which would have made the oil wealth of the country going to the private accounts of multinational corporations and their local collaborators to be used for the collective need of the poor working people of Nigeria. While it is agreed that public corporations have been corruptly and inefficiently run, it is clear that the same politicians, who are only compensated with appointments to boards of public corporations, that killed most of these public corporations and are now the ones buying or serving as fronts for multinationals to buy these public hard-earned resources. Privatization cannot therefore serve as solution but only a democratic control in which the working people will have access to the account books and make policies in public interests that can serve as lasting solution. Unfortunately, the labour leadership has been kowtowing the political and business class. The implication of this is that the labour leadership at all levels could not genuinely fight the end result of privatization.

 

For instance, while labour make some statements in the press, it has never fought against retrenchment rather, labour leadership in many sectors only call for adequate payment of emoluments of retrenchment workers. But can a labour leadership that fail to defend job fight for a worker after retrenchment. This is glaring from the reaction of the labour leadership to pension issues. It is a clear fact that labour leadership has never taken the issue of fighting for adequate and promptly-paid pension for retired workers as action programme, yet tens of thousands of pensioners continue to groan in poverty as a result of unpaid pension arrears. But the same labour leadership is comfortable in being part of pension boards which exploit workers in the interest of the capitalist class. Or how else can one describe a situation in which money is deducted from workers salaries in the name of contributory pension and handed over to private businessmen who make unprecedented wealth from it, not by investing in productive business but through stock market gambling and debt trading. At the end of the day, workers are shortchanged because most of these businessmen will not easily hand over workers' contribution to them especially when such monies are making profit for them in the stock and debt market. Already, the signs of this is clear as there are talks of giving decade-long bond to workers. The meaning of this is that workers will be given a sheet of paper acknowledging that they have money with the pension administrators but that they could not get the money. But can a sheet of paper buy rice in the market or pay school fees. The implication is that these parasitic pension administrators are looking for opportunity to deny workers their pay because by the time the so called pension bond would have matured some of them would have died. Also, reports have revealed that many private companies are already defaulting in their contribution while those contributing are only using their business fronts and collaborators as pension administrators such that the monies will recycle for their business. Even, the public service pension scheme is already rooted in fraud as most of pension administrating companies are owned by politicians who use workers wealth for personal business. Definitely, the new pension scheme will go the way of the defunct and fraudulent mortgage fund and social insurance fund. Ironically however, the labour leadership has been a member of the new pension board that sit over this exploitation, but the same labour leadership will be issuing statement out when the results of its collaborationist policy come out. Already, over N800 billion has been exploited from workers' wealth either directly or indirectly, which gives the capitalist class unprecedented access to cheap opportunity to make unmerited wealth. A labour leadership with a genuine purpose would have mobilized the workers and the poor people in general for a mass action to ensure immediate payment of adequate, living pension for all pensioners, living or dead.

 

But the failure of labour leadership is more glaring when one looks at the character of the wage increment agitation. While labour leadership's struggle to ensure implementation of wage increment is commendable, the fact is that this struggles have only been defensive as most wage increment are products of government's initiative which are mostly meant to douse mass anger or to gain political favour not as a deliberate attempt to redistribute wealth as most of the wage increment are accompanied by other anti-poor policies that tend to take back the gains of the wage increment - retrenchment, fuel price hike, etc. Of course labour leadership usually negotiate with government on wage increment, but there are action programmes to compel government to pay, thus the implementation is left at the messianic benevolence of the government. The  immediate implication of this is that the meagre increase is used to justify the long-term and continuous plundering of the nation's wealth by the business and political class. The labour leadership should have drawn out a wage increment based on current living cost, inflation and wealth value of the country. Furthermore, all other basic social facilities that are meant to be provided for workers, their poor families and relation who constitute the 70 percent poor of this country will be included in a charter of demand to abolish working and poor people's poverty. Such demands, aside a adequate living minimum wage will include adequately funded (by at least 26 percent) free and qualitative education and health care; secure jobs for all citizens with adequate pension and old age wages; cheap, efficient and environment-friendly transport, energy and communication system; potable water supply; mass public housing, among others. Then, the labour movement will mobilize the masses through press campaign, rallies, mass meeting, publication, alliance with other progressive and pro-labour organizations, protest marches, pickets and strike action, which will force the government to take a decisive action. It is then that the labour movement can make the working and poor masses to have faith in this country; it is then that the masses will get actively involved in issues affecting them thus pushing the political and business class to defensive.

 

But these demands can only be achieved when the resources of the country is put under the democratic public ownership whereby the enormous wealth of the the country (both natural and material), rather than going to the private use of political and big business class, will be used to achieve these programmatic demands. But, this will again place the issue to the political plain because the current set of politicians are in power to ensure the continued existence of neo-liberal capitalist system. In fact, many politicians are sponsored by business class. The policies of Yar'Adua government since inception and the manner of its emergence has clearly underlined this fact. While masses are groaning in poverty, the Yar'Adua government prefer to impose another electricity tax on the country even when it is clear that the political and business class have looted the nation's wealth dry for this purpose. The same government that cannot arrest and prosecute the political and business leaders who contributed to the failure of the Nigerian state is ready to impose electricity tax on hapless and poor Nigerians in the name of boosting private investment. But is it not the same private investors (both local and foreign) that contributed to the looting of the electricity funds. The Yar'Adua government should tell Nigerians how it intends to serve Nigerians when it hiked electricity prices in favour of the business sharks in a country where 70 percent are poor and less than 30 percent of Nigerians have access to the erratic electricity. From education to health to infrastructure to economy, the Yar'Adua government has shown that it is the continuation of the anti-poor Obasanjo government. Yet, it is this kind of government that labour leaders are having strategic partnership with. This is most unfortunate tragedy of labour movement in Nigeria.

 

 Therefore, unless the labour movement is ready to proffer a political alternative by forming a pan-Nigerian, radical, mass workers' party with socialism boldly written on its front banner, the political class will never implement these demands. Such a party would be built as a fighting party that will champion all the programmes and demands of the labour movement. It will build its democratic structures from grass root up to the national level such that the views and positions of workers at workplaces and grass root levels will count. Such a party will also serve as the political tool of struggle for the working people. The working masses are ready to commit their lives to struggle for a changed society. This is reflected in the political support Adams Oshiomhole is enjoying today from the working poor which reflect masses interest in struggles that can better their lot. It is unfortunate hat Oshiomhole and labour leadership have only translated this to support for the capitalist class. For instance, rather than for Oshiomhole to build the labour party as a radical, fighting mass workers' party, he preferred to contest under a bourgeois party. While one does not doubt the sincerity of labour leaders and that of Oshiomhole, it is important to look reality in the face. The labour leadership more than ever has shown that it has the wherewithal to live the masses up and change Nigeria for better. It should translate this to action plan. It is when labour does this that the masses will be lifted up and be ready to commit their lives for this transformation of Nigeria from the stranglehold of the capitalist system to a just, socialist system where the need of people will be the basis of governance and production. The recent call for a protest rally against corruption is commendable but the labour leadership should not make this to be an episodic action it must be organised across the length and breadth of the country and sustained until those ruinous, corrupt capitalist rulers who looted the nation blind are brought to book. Also, the labour should link the general socio-economic demands to improve the lives of the common man with the call for a probe. But ultimately, only a working class government that will emerge from a fighting mass working class party that can fully implement these demands. Events have confirmed this. The labour leadership should act now. This is the lesson of this year's Workers' Day.

 

Kola Ibrahim

Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

Kmarx4live@yahoo.com