Stories By Victor Ahiuma-Young

I N recent times, new lexicons have been creeping into the nation’s industrial relations practice with words such as redundancy, rightsizing, downsizing, restructuring and the likes now as euphemism instead of sack. No matter which of the word use, the simple meaning is that the employer is just telling a worker that his or her services are no longer needed.

 CONFERENCE: From left: President, National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, NUTGTWN, Comrade John Adaji with other guests at the NUTGTWN 29th National Education Conference in Sokoto. Photo Olu Ajayi.

Besides termination of employment on the basis of infraction, one of the features of the 29th Annual Education Conference of the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, NUTGTWN, in Sokoto, Sokoto State, is that most of these sacks are unnecessary if the employers do the needful.

With the theme, “Industry, Labour and National Unity”, General Secretary of the union, Comrade Issa Aremu, told the guests and participants including  private and public employers and lawmakers that what workers need is re-tooling or retraining to remain relevant in the modern day reality and not sack.

Modern day reality

According to him: “If you think education is costly, try the cost of ignorance goes the popular saying. In the past 30 years, through annual education conference,  our union has spent billions of Naira of union dues to educate as many as 60,100 branch executives, shop stewards and tailors. Many of the participants are also women. This year’s conference costs some  N20 million.

Participants’ fees of about N5, 000 for 300 participants drawn from 23 participating remaining textile mills nation-wide, and 14 states where our newly organized tailors are amount to about N7 million. The benefits in members’ education are higher than the costs to the union. Due to knowledge acquired through collective bargaining, textile union has signed a total of 48 national agreements since inception in 1978, the highest  signed collective agreements by any union without a single national strike. At branch levels thousands of such collective agreements abound converting wages and allowances.

“Today we call on employers and governments at all levels to invest in workers’ education through skill acquisition and productivity awareness. The greatest factor of production and asset of any nation is its workforce. The most successful countries value human resource than non-renewable resources like oil and gas. Governments and private sector employers should never underrate the workers and human beings in general.

Train the workers; don’t sack them because they lack skills. Train them on negotiating skills, don’t criminalize strikes and unionism. Nigeria can only have sustainable economic recovery with well motivated trained workforce like in China.  The world has moved from first industrial revolution to the 4th Industrial revolution in which robots are replacing workers. The new workers to operate digital factories need digital education. Workers that would be displace need new skills to move to other jobs. All is about training.”

Earlier, President of the union, John Adaji, said Sokoto was chosen as a venue to identify with the Governor Tambuwal commitment to industrial revival in the country, saying “The choice of Sokoto is also propelled by the need to demonstrate the impact of industry on the economy and the people and the need for Governors particularly in the cotton producing states to promote value added manufacturing even on the public private partnership basis as a strategy for job creation and wealth generation.”

He explained further that the choice of the  theme of the Conference, ” Labour, Industry and National Unity”, was motivated by the need to continuously engage the current economic framework enunciated by the Buhari Administration for industrial revival and in particular cotton production  policy and the promise it holds for revival of textile industries in Nigeria. .

It is also to focus attention on the Country’s labour force as an important vehicle for driving prosperity and development. The Conference will provide the platform to address the basic labour market issues such as living wage, pension, Social security and other welfare benefits that are germane to raising productive workforce.  Finally the conference is expected to discuss and reaffirm labour’s position for unity based on the principle of justice, fairness and equality.

We hold the position that as Nation we cannot address the raging question of unity without first addressing the rising income inequality and deepening poverty across the length and breadth of our Country.

We must first address the high level of youth unemployment through agricultural revolution and creation of favourable industrial policy framework that would ensure widespread establishment of value added manufacturing in all parts of the country. This is the intricate linkage between Labour, industry and the question of national unity