By Funmi Komolafe

Last Wednesday, the nation had  to contend with a national strike by the Nigeria Labour Congress ( NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), over  national minimum wage. As usual, interest groups, anxious to be in the good books of the government of the day, made appeals to the labour unions to call off the strike even before it took off.

Was the strike necessary?
By the time most people went to bed, last Tuesday, many were not sure the strike called by NLC and TUC would take off, but, it did, because the unions  had  fully mobilised members for the minimum wage struggle.

However, the struggle for a national minimum wage has a history, indeed, recent history that all the parties should have learnt from.

NLC  first made public its demand for a review of the  national minimum wage last December. The demand was for N52,500 per month. For over six months,  the Federal  Government did not take the the union leaders seriously. After several months of agitation and strike threats from labour, the government set up the  Justice Alfa Belgore Committee. The committee had representatives of private employers and some state governments.

Cross-section of workers during a protest rally on the Murtala Muhammed Way in Yaba, Lagos.

The committee  initially agreed on N25,000 per month as, according to one of the negotiators, “we had to  negotiate downwards to accommodate what is affordable for many employers.”

With  the conclusion of the work of the Belgore committee, the three social partners- government,  private employers  and organised labour have complied with Convention 98 of the International Labour Organisation on  Collective Bargaining.  It was then left for  the Executive, that is the Ministry of Labour and the Presidency,  to forward  a bill  for the amendment to the National Minimum Wage Act 2000 to the National Assembly.

It is, therefore, not surprising that the two labour centres  stated that they will “not accept  any figure less than the negotiated figure of N18,000 in the  report of the  Tripartite Committee chaired  by  Justice Alfa Belgore.”

That is the norm and it must be adhered to.

Antecedents
However, the Executive must take the blame for pushing labour to a strike.

To the credit of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo,  his government passed the bill for the amendment of the 1991 National Minimum Wage Act to the National Assembly and ensured it was passed within two weeks.

Passing the bill does not require lenghty deliberations from legislators since it is a product of collective bargaining.

It was for its peaceful conduct of negotiation and implementation of the national minimum wage that the International Labour Organisation invited Obasanjo to the 2001 International Labour Conference to showcase Nigeria as a country- model to other countries.

One also recalls that in 1991, the government of military president, Ibrahim Babangida, raised the national minimum wage by 100 per cent without a strike  by labour.

How?  The government set up a committee headed by Professor Ukandi Damanchi to meet with labour and other stakeholders with the possibility of arriving at a new national minimum wage.  For weeks, the committee could not reach any conclusion.  Following strike threats  by NLC, the government invited the labour  leaders to a meeting during which the parties agreed on N25,000 per  month as national minimum wage.

One may argue that proper collective bargaining did not take place but workers got a 100 per cent pay rise.  Before the 1991 review, the national minimum wage was N125 per month  as contained in the 1981 National Minimum Wage Act.

This time round , although the National Wages Commission has released a table of  how much federal civil servants will earn,  the effective date remains  uncertain.  Also, some state governments have openly said that they are not  in a position to pay yet some had indicated willingness to pay.

What may have also provoked labour to action is the speed with which the National Assembly approved life pay for former heads of state and their  spouses including the one whose family  was widely known to have looted the national treasury with a record.

The struggle continues

For labour leaders, a strike is not a  tea party.   It  is a time when they have to meet at odd hours and  mobilise members for the action. It, therefore, did not come as a surprise to most Nigerians who are familiar with the operations of organised labour that the union leaders did not suspend the strike when they met with President Goodluck Jonathan.

To call it off just because the President intervened at the late hour would have cost the labour leaders their reputation.  People will be quick to label them “Sell-out“ .  More importantly, they needed to return to the same organ of the Labour Centres that  gave the strike order to direct its suspension.

Though the strike lasted a few hours, its impact on the economy is significant.

To make the point that it is not over until it is over, NLC, in its statement on the suspension of the strike, declared,  “Having lost precious time on the issue of a new  national minimum wage, the Presidency  should  immediately  after the meeting  of the National Council of State on  November 25, 2010 present a  bill to the National Assembly  which will fast-tract the process  before the meeting of these very organs in the first week of December 2010.”

Besides, with elections  fast approaching,  no responsible union will fold its arms and allow a government jettison an agreement collectively  reached dragged into uncertainty.