Comrade Joe Ajaero is the president of the United Labour Congress (ULC), one of the organised labour movements in the country. In this interview with Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf he speaks on his management style and shares his experience about running a vibrant labour movement. Excerpts:
As a leader of men and resources, what is your management style?
Well, l think there’s one thing common with driving a workers- based organisation: You’ve to get the buy-in of everyone. It’s not like you tell them what to do per se. You actually carry out their decisions; it’s like been a servant leader. For instance, at the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting or the CWC meeting, you argue your position and also allow others to air their views. But whatever is now agreed upon, you simply go ahead and implement it. Having said that, l can tell you that to a very large extent, most of us believe in the ideology of workers centricity. Even if people think that the decisions we take may be hasty, risky or even difficult, but for us, the interest of the workers is always paramount. Definitely if you have over 50,000 members in an organisation, you’ll be sure to have experts in different fields. But as the leader your ability to aggregate their position matters. By all means, you must be willing to listen more. It’s when you listen more that you’ll be able to aggregate or maintain a common position because even while you’re saying let’s go right others may believe that there is need to go left and vice versa. So your ability to control and manage differences of opinion is important.
What philosophy guides your thought process?
You combine a lot. There are situations where people feel you’re laissez-faire. But we try to enshrine internal democracy in all union decisions as influenced by the assignments of the organs. So we’re clearly very democratic in decision-making. But in most instances in the implementation of decisions, you’ve to be resolute. For example, l don’t think when you’re trying to execute a strike action you want to be democratic about it. No. There’s that element of radicalism in every unionist and it’s something you can’t change.
If you’re a shy or timid person, the moment you’re called to lead, you seize to be that person. Naturally, you’ve to wear the toga of a leader who must be ready to act whenever the need arises.
To recap, we adopt democratic system of administration mixed with laissez-faire where everyone makes inputs so much so that we may seem to be over democratic. But if you’re thinking in terms of the ideology most of the labour unions are formed based on some level of social welfare disposition. If you’re not talking about social welfare of the workers, if you’re not looking at civil democracy in all you’re doing you can’t be a good union leader.
As a labour leader, when does your typical day begin? I remember a union leader once told me he works for ‘48’ hours a day. So tell us what works for you.
(Laughs). As a labour leader, naturally you don’t have a closing time or resumption time; it depends on what’s on ground. I don’t switch off my phones for any reason because a worker may want to reach me at any time of the day. Such a worker may be on night duty or night shift and if there’s any issue he should be able to reach me as his leader. So as a labour leader, you naturally work for 24hours a day even on public holidays.
I can tell you, leading a labour union is not an easy task at all. For example, anytime you’ve a strike action to execute, it consumes you totally, especially if you don’t want it to fail. You’ve to be everywhere and that’s why they say a labour leader is just like a general in the army. Every unionist, especially those who passed through the mill as a matter of course, must know about conflict management and conflict resolution or strike management. I recall that in those days, we used to have a course called strike management because it’s only natural that if you know how to settle conflict, you must equally know how to instigate one too. In labour circles, there’s this belief that nobody sees you as a peacemaker but as a troublemaker and that’s normal.
I’m also aware that in military school, when they teach you about coup foiling, you must first of all learn about coup plotting. In the same vein, if somebody tells you how to break up a strike and he didn’t tell you how to cause a strike that person has not taught you anything. So these are some of the ideal some of us have internalised and that’s why some people tell you that they work for 48hours in a day. It’s not an exaggeration. (Laughs).
As a matter of fact, we run an organisation that has members in all the local government areas across the country so naturally you’re always on demand. We delegate assignments most times but we equally have to be there some of the time too.
What are some other skills you must have to succeed as a labour leader?
You must be an all-rounder: You play the role of a teacher, motivator, good listener, orator, negotiator, name it.
Do you micromanage or delegate as you said?
Absolutely that’s very important. You delegate most times as well as supervise things yourself a lot of the time because you’re called to lead. Normally, if there’s an issue in a particular company or organisation as the case may be, you reach out to the chapter functionaries such as the chairman of that place. From there, you get through to the state chairman and down to the zonal leadership before getting to the national secretariat. That’s the chain of command.
Can you recall one of the toughest decisions you’ve taken in the course of your career?
I have been involved in labour union all through the years from my days at the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) to Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and all of that. So to be frank, there’s no decision that is entirely new to me. But l can say categorically that one of the critical moments in my career as a unionist was setting up the United Labour Congress (ULC). It took a lot of effort and conviction on our part before we went ahead to constitute a labour movement. We took that decision when it became apparent that the existing labour union was no longer supporting the aspiration of the workers. When we saw this lack of sincerity of purpose, we decided to move. It was a decision that we all took, it was not a unilateral decision by one man. No. Equally, when we decided to shutdown Arik Air, we took it notwithstanding the hardship it was going to create to Nigerians because we had insider knowledge that Arik was no longer healthy and we took that decision just barely three days of the formation of ULC. ULC came into existence on 17th December, 2016 and then between 21-22nd of December 2016, we shutdown Arik. You can see that it was a decision taken at such a short notice but we took that decision in the best interest of the industry and most especially the workers who were being owed over six months’ salary arrears. To perfect that operation required high level planning. We got the pilot union, NAAPE to comply and we also blocked supply of aviation fuel through our affiliate unions, NUPENG. In fact, when we said the strike had been called off, Arik had to appeal to us specially to help them to beg NUPENG to commence supply of aviation fuel. So what mattered is not the decision but making the decision successful at the end of the day.
In the same token, what do you consider your most favourable decision overtime?
Once again, it brings us back to the issue l raised about running wide consultations. I don’t take decisions alone. Decisions are based on the inputs of the larger committee which normally comprise the national secretariat or heads of departments, the president, the general secretary whether at the NEC or CWC meeting. The moment they take that decision, all you do is to go ahead and implement just like the decision we took concerning Arik; it favoured the workers largely because after the action most of their salary arrears were cleared by the management at the end of the day.
How do you motivate your staff?
We have both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational variables which we adopt. The wages are low, no doubt but we try to pay as and when due. If people work very well, and you commend them, they’re happy. Here l think we promoted somebody recently that has not been late to work for about five consecutive years. That kind of gesture make others get serious with their work. But where you have the resources, you provide facilities, even if it’s a low interest loan, you can provide it for them to solve some of their problems. I recall at the Electricity union, what we did at a time was to pay people their entire entitlements while they’re still working. We calculated their gratuity apart from their severance and we paid them. Then you could see that most of the workers even common clerks and messengers started building houses of their own knowing that they will still get their salaries at the end of the month. Many of them invested the money because when they leave the job, whatever you give at the time may not be enough to do something tangible for them. So the best thing in most instances is to make sure that you give them something from what they’ve worked. But it’s usually by choice.