In the Labour circle, 2012 started with a strike and ended with it, reports DUPE OLAOYE-OSINKOLU
For the Labour movement, 2012 was turbulent. It was full of activism. Picketing, mass rallies, protests, strikes were the order of the day.
The year opened with struggles. Labour resisted some government’s policies – winning some, losing others.
Its first struggle was the resistance against fuel price increase. The Federal Government had announced an increase in Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) from N65 to N141 per litre on January 1. This incurred Labour’s wrath. The disagreement between Labour and the government over the issue snowballed into a week-long strike and protest that paralysed economic activities in the country.
The strike, due to the parties’ inability to reach an agreement on the fuel subsidy removal, started on Monday, January 9. It was co-ordinated by the Labour and Civil Society Coalition (LASCO). Its enforcement was with mass action in workplaces, markets, schools, neighbourhoods and major link roads.
The Lagos rally took off at the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Secretariat and moved to Gani Fawehinmi Park, Ojota, which became a temporary home to many people. Some brought their mats, pillows, kerosene stoves to the venue.
There was no boring moment throughout the strike, as musicians stationed a giant generator to supply power to the venue, where people took turns to entertain free.
Labour wanted a reversal of PMS price from the announced N141to N65 per litre, but the government refused.
When the crowd kept on increasin, singing anti-government songs, and protesting daily from 7am till 6pm, the Federal Government , at the end of the first week, deployed soldiers to the streets of Lagos and Abuja, to prevent the movement of the people.
The issue was, however, resolved when President Goodluck Jonathan met with the two labour unions before announcing a new price of N97 per litre. A lot of dust was raised by the reduction because Labour claimed it was unilaterally done by the government, while its civil society allies alleged dishonesty, saying the mandate of N65 was not adhered to.
The reduction was counted as a plus for Labour. Having achieved a partial victory in the struggle, Labour rolled out conditions that the Federal Government needed to meet, to end the rot in the oil sector.
This later led to the Farouk Lawan Adhoc Committee that started, according to many, on a good note.
Even Labour commended and encouraged the Committee. Then, the unexpected happened. The assumed righteous Committee Chairman was indicted by an oil magnate, Femi Otedola, for alleging collecting a bribe of $620,000. In the face of the crisis, Labour held on to its position in the report already submitted by the Adhoc Committee on Oil Subsidy. It called for its implementation, saying those found guilty must be brought to book. But the report saw the light of day.
Now that the court has stopped the Federal Government from implementing the Farouk Committee Report, Labour may, expectedly, dust it.
The National Minimum Wage is another issue that took centre stage this year. Many state governments battled to maintain peace in their domain as workers kept threatening to down tools should the government fail to meet their ultimatums. Oyo, Ondo, Osun, Borno, Ekiti, Edo, Plateau state workers, among others, protested the non-implementation of the new national minimum wage.
Some of the state governments wriggled out of the crisis, but Plateau was not that lucky. The strike embarked upon by the state workers is still ongoing. The bone of contention? Plateau Government did not want to implement the wage in full.
Labour and the state government later settled for 55 per cent of the minimum wage, but the workers rejected the insistence by the government that it would only pay for the period the workers were at work.
Governor Jonah Jang then claimed that he was relying on a United Nations resolution that no worker should be paid for the period he deliberately stayed out of office. The labour leaders, however, argued that the law could not be applied in Nigeria since it has not been domesticated in the nation’s statute books.
The Labour Minister intervened on December 20. His intervention has led to the suspension of the strike, on the condition that the Plateau Government pay the striking local government workers their salaries from June 2012 with 55 per cent implementation.
The National Minimum Wage Act stipulates that the least paid worker should receive N18000. Some governors said it would be easier for them to implement only if the Federal Government increased the monthly revenue allocation accruing to their states.
Only few states have implemented the Wage Act to the letter. Labour has spent one year, struggling with such state governments.
In Abia, the Governor sacked non-indigenes in the civil service, saying that was the only way for the state to pay the new wage. Indigenes who married “outsiders” were affected.
Local government workers are arguing that the joint account system being operated by state and local government is delaying the implementation of the N18,000 minimum wage to council employees.
President of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) Ibrahim Khaleel said deductions for the joint accounts have affected the councils as they cannot meet their financial obligations.
He argued that if the statutory allocations to local government areas got into the councils’coffers, the councils would not have remained in the current situation where they could not implement the payment of the national minimum wage.
While Labour struggles for implementation of the N18,000 minimum wage, many workers kissed their jobs goodbye due to no fault of theirs. Employers in many of the sectors of the economy reduced staff strength due to economic imbalance.
Workers in the manufacturing, textile and banking sectors were part of the job losses. In the banking sector alone, about 1.7 million jobs were lost in the period under review.
In the private sector, stakeholders tried to proffer solution. President of the National Union of Chemical Footwear, Rubber, Leather and Non Metallic Products Employees (NUCFRLANMPE), Comrade Boniface Isok, said some policies of the government affected some industries in the chemical sector.
He explained that the directive of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to bank debtors to pay up was part of the reasons for factory closures and redundancy of workers.
As Labour grappled with increasing job casualties, it was roused by a bill sponsored by Senator Heineken Lokpobori (PDP, Bayelsa West) meant to amend the Labour law to make it mandatory for unions to vote before embarking on strike. There was uproar.
Trade unions said the bill was aimed at muzzling them.
Senator Ayogu Eze, while supporting the bill, said it was meant to ensure that the unions did not mix labour dispute with politics. The bill died as there was opposition against it.
Beside, in the second quarter of the year, Imo State workers protested the creation of a fourth tier of government, which empowered traditional rulers to pay civil servants in their domain. The workers alleged that the governor imposed the tier on them. The state House of Assembly okayed the bill for the establishment of the fourth tier of government in the state.
In the health sector, Lagos State Government effected a mass sack of doctors in the second quarter of the year. The action generated a lot of controversy, as the government tried to evict the affected doctors from their official quarters.
The state has explained that it sacked 788 doctors in its employ because they failed to respond to queries issued to them for embarking on “an illegal strike’’.
About 316 doctors of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) and 472 of the other hospitals were affected by the government action.
The state government earlier queried them for embarking on a three-day warning strike from April 11 to April 13.
Federal health workers also engaged the Federal Government over promotion of health professionals from CONHESS 14 to 15 and implementation of the Presidential Committee Report on harmony in the health sector.
In the outgoing year, there was was a pension scam. Public servants enriched themselves at the expense of retired workers. The Senate has vowed to get the culprits. Some public servants are, however, being tried in courts of law. Even in the last quarter of the year, more discoveries were made.
The Chairman of Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina, was fingered in a N195 billion pension fraud. He, however, did not honour the Senate’s invitation to defend himself.
The Joint Committee on Establishment, Public Service and Local Government Administration was mandated by the Senate to investigate pension administration from 1999.
The Senate President, David Mark, also directed the Inspector-General of Police, Muhammed Abubakar, to compel Mr Maina to appear before the Joint committee.
Maina, however, disagreed with the lawmakers over pilfered funds meant for the payment of pensions to retirees.
He denied the allegations, saying that the legislators had connived with his detractors who were uncomfortable with the reforms.
Workers are wary of the contributory pension scheme. The National Pension Commission (PenCom) is allaying their fear that the scam was perpetrated in the old pension system, which had been in existence before the Pension Act 2004.
