By Victor AhiumaYoung  & Dickson Omobola

The Director-General of Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association, NECA, Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, in this interview, speaks on the state of industrial relations practice in Nigeria, the proliferation of strikes, among others.

Excerpts

Industrial relations practice

The industrial relations system is big on our plate and what we have called for and we are calling for is a total review of the rule of engagement. We really don’t have to reinvent the wheels. We are a very strong and responsible member of the International Labour Organisation, ILO. Nigeria currently sits as the chairperson of that organisation. Fortunately, I am also representing our association (employers) on the board of the ILO. An NLC representative is also on the board of ILO.

ILO has global standards and different recommendations on how these practices and rules of engagement should be implemented. We don’t really need to reinvent the wheels. We have the Nigerian labour laws which we hope that the National Assembly will focus on and pass into law in the next few months as committed to by the Minister of Labour and Employment.

We have institutions of labour administration – the Industrial Arbitration Panel, and the National Industrial Court. Those are institutions where if there is a crisis, and an employee is not satisfied with what the employer has done, there is the option of approaching those institutions.

We must deliberately strengthen those institutions. Our propensity to jump the gun, do things arbitrarily should stop both from government, labour and employers. We all have to come back and agree that this pattern, and trajectory that we are following will not lead us to Eldorado. A total review of the industrial relations activities of this nation is quite urgent.We know that the Federal Ministry of Labour has done some work on national industrial relations policy.

It has also been validated but the time for revalidation is now. This is the time for all stakeholders to sign onto that rule of engagement. We  have the National Labour Advisory Council, NLAC that should also be strengthened to play a critical role within the confines of this engagement. The proliferation of strikes is a symptom of a bigger issue. We should be bold enough to address that bigger issue which is the whole foundation context and framework of our industrial relations system.

Checking strike proliferation

There are three ways. The first is education or re-education of players in that space. Labour needs to re-educate itself, employers need to re-educate themselve and the government at the level of the Federal Ministry of Labour, (its officials) needs to re-educate itself to understand the context of industrial relations in which we are all players. It does not give room for arbitrariness, there is a process. There are rights and responsibilities.

As there are responsibilities, there are limitations. There is a framework that must be followed, I cannot just come one day and say this is what I want to do. We have to first re-educate ourselves, those who will become the union executive have to re-educate themselves, and the employers and employers group have to re-educate themselves in the rules of engagement.

The Ministry of Labour playing the role of an arbiter also has to re-educate itself because the ministry should actually be at the forefront of education. If you are going to be the arbiter, the conciliator, that means you must understand the process and the issues much more than those that are bringing the issues.

The ILO is there, which has played a key role in providing technical support, providing capacity building for stakeholders and we have also played our part in the context of education. Early this year, we had the national labour adjudication forum; it has become a national event. Next year, we will have the second edition. The Michael Imoudu National Institute of Labour Studies, MINILS, is also there. We cannot know enough so education is key.

The second part is a definitive commitment by all stakeholders that whatever happens, we must follow the processes and steps that have been set down. The Trade Disputes Act has a provision for everybody. We must all be committed to following those steps to the letter. They won’t be convenient but it is a process that has been institutionally established and it must be respected. That is the path that we strongly believe will lead us back to industrial peace and harmony.

The third part is for all of us to show a high level of integrity in our words. If you are committing to an agreement, you should be able to live to fulfill the obligation to the letter. Coming to sign an agreement when I know that I will not implement it creates a problem. I think we should be moving towards that path of sanctity of agreement as we have in the private sector.

In the private sector, collective bargaining is signed sometimes every year, two years, or three years depending on the industry. Significantly, the contexts and principles of the sanctity of agreement are alive in the organised private sector.

Labour ministry as arbiter

It boils down to the issue of training and retraining. It is like the role of the human resource manager in a business. You are a management representative and at the same time, you are an employee’s champion. The ministry through training has to maintain that balance. Taking sides compromises your ability to adjudicate and when that impartiality is taken out,  you lose credibility.

If you lose credibility with any of the social partners, it creates much more problems for you. You will have sown the seed of distrust for the future. The role of the ministry is very critical and we must all together create a structure that is respected and the government also respects the views of social partners so that we can have proper direction.

Employment, insecurity

It is globally accepted that the private sector creates eight or nine jobs. The private sector is actually the driver of economic activities. We call it the engine of national development and if you want to create jobs, you should focus on the private sector. Create an enabling environment for local investors to remain sustainable and thrive. If they are surviving, thriving, and competitive, it will naturally draw in foreign direct investment. As those businesses are expanding, their need for staff will increase. So, you are solving those issues strategically.

The flip side is if the private sector is struggling and businesses are relocating, companies are divesting, the natural consequence is they will release staff into the job market. A man who cannot sustain himself looks for every means to do it. As it is said, an idle man is the devil’s workshop. If they cannot sustain themselves, they cannot have one good meal a day, then an average young person will start looking for options to survive. In the quest for survival, anybody can do anything. It is an enlightened self-interest for the government to create an enabling environment for the private sector. Currently, the private sector is bedeviled. Beyond the issues of taxes, we also have regulatory and legislative onslaughts on organised businesses.

We have been battling the National Assembly ad-hoc committees for several months, and several years on the legality of their invitations to organised businesses. We have complained. The matter is currently at the Supreme Court. All those issues create apprehension in the mind of the local business person and a foreign direct investor. We need to fix the issue bedeviling the organised private sector so that they can expand, grow and remain competitive which is the pathway for us to address the issue of unemployment. If we don’t deal with it, the universities continue to churn out graduates and there is no place for them to go. It bounces on society, on our socio-economic strata because we fuel the propensity for crime to increase. Those young guys have to find a way to survive.

It will be an enlightened self-interest for government to deepen its collaboration with the organised private sector.

 Even with the issues of wage increase, if you don’t fix the issues bedeviling the organised private sector, the more it is becoming difficult to run businesses, the more the cost of doing business is increasing, the more the cost of doing business is increasing, the more the cost of goods and services. On the other end, increasing wages by 1,000 percent will be nullified by the increasing cost of goods and services.

It will negate it. That is why we advise that those issues (wage increase and business sustainability) are dealt with concurrently. If not, we will just continue on the path that we have always taken. Job losses, and unemployment all have a direct impact on the level of insecurity that we have in this country.

Decent jobs

As the employers’ representative and the voice of businesses in Nigeria, what we preach is responsible enterprises. They align with ILO principles of decent work absolutely. We align with the ILO concept that labour is not a commodity and should not be treated as such.

In our engagement, we have emphasised the need for decent work. Not only decent work, but the concept that we have aligned with even at the global level, is business rights because businesses are also delving into the issue of human rights now. It is quite interesting and we align with that concept.

Without making excuses, when the environment becomes hostile to a business that is striving to exist, the option that will be given to an employer that is already on the floor is very little. Unfortunately, one of those ways will be cutting corners. Fix the business environment; fix the regulatory and legislative environment for it to be appealing to an average Nigerian to run a business and the challenges of cutting corners will be significantly reduced.

We cannot be complaining about the effect and we are feeding the cause. We say this is not right, this is not fine but we are feeding its cause, it will be counterproductive. That is what we are championing. We have also been liaison with the Federal Ministry of Labour to create opportunities for engagement and learning so that those that are still far behind within the context of decent or indecent work can align with the best practice of promoting decent work in the organisation.

Suffice it to say that we believe strongly in the concept of decent work and it is something that we will continue to promote as Employers Federation of Nigeria.