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Saturday, July 20, 2013

National Mirror: Looming nationwide industrial crisis

National Mirror
All the Facts | All the Sides 
Looming nationwide industrial crisis
Jul 20th 2013, 23:05, by Jim Unah

The Academic Staff Union of Universities— ASUU, has declared industrial dispute with the Federal Government—FG over the latter's failure to implement the essential aspects of the 2009 Agreement signed with the union and sundry other grievances. On their part, the university students from different parts of the country have been staging peaceful protests against the FG for mistreating their teachers and creating situations that truncate the academic calendar of the nation's school system. The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics— ASUP just suspended its seven weeks old strike.

There are several other trade and labour unions in the country chanting war songs and threatening strike action against their employers who are ultimately agents of the Federal Government. It is easy for the FG to discount all of these as routine, familiar labour brick backs with government over which it is conversant and has grown weary. That is not what is worrisome.

What is worrisome is that the Minister of Finance was reported recently as stating in unequivocal terms that the FG would not be able to pay staff salaries from October 2013. If that report is correct, then, the labour unions have greater problem on their hands than just insisting on fulfilling freely entered obligation to the workers. The warning signs of greater trouble to come have been written large on the not too distant horizon, and the time for organized labour to seize the initiative and take pre-emptive action is now.

The labour unions should confront the FG with the brutal facts of the huge income accruing from crude oil sales, whether remitted to the designated accounts or not, by the revenue generating agencies of state; the equally huge loses arising from oil theft; the reported billions of naira daily lost to high profile corruption cases; the various leakages of government resources identified and pointed out to the powers-that-be; the oil subsidy fraud detected and exposed for government drastic punitive action yet to receive the sort of attention it deserves, and several other sources of leakages confirming that the nation has enough resources to cater for all the citizens including the workers to let the National Assembly and the Executive arm of government know that the predicted non-payment of salaries is deliberately inflicted by the brewing antagonism between the two organs of government.

Failure of the State to honour agreements signed with the labour unions raises questions concerning the integrity of government and whether indeed the State expects the citizens, including the Boko Haram fundamentalist sect, to obey the laws made by it to regulate their conduct and whether such laws of the Federal Republic should be treated as binding and sacrosanct. When government deliberately disobeys the agreements that it duly entered into with labour unions, it unwittingly creates room for the culture of impunity to thrive.

The Minister of Finance who is also charged by the Jonathan Government to coordinate the entire economy might have made the disclosure about the possible inability of the FG to pay staff salaries to its workers come October 2013 in good faith, with a view to preparing Nigerians for the worst, the fact is that she appears to have been economical with the truth. One question that comes to mind is how is it that the proposed N2.5 trillion on recurrent expenditure in the 2013 Appropriation Bill does not take account of workers salaries? Is it that the Minister did not budget properly to take adequate account of workers' salaries or that the recent slash of the 2013 Appropriation Bill as Amended by the lower House of the National Assembly has expectedly affected the quantum of workers salaries in such a way that it would not be able to meet its obligation to the workers come October 2013?

Even if that were granted, could a similar reason be adduced for the refusal of the FG to honour the agreement that it entered into with ASUU? How come that the Minister of Finance did not provide for the full implementation of the 2009 Agreement with ASSU, if the slash of the budget by the Reps is not the culprit in the brewing industrial crisis? If it is, why is the Minister playing the Ostrich and not telling Nigerians the whole truth?

Nothing heals a nation of its wounds like the truth, and though it may be very bitter, it has to be told. Let the FG demonstrate that it has in good faith provided for the full implementation of the 2009 Agreement it signed with ASSU in the 2013 Appropriation Bill as Amended, and that it is the angry Reps, who by their rash slashing of the budget, created the problem of insufficiency of funds to implement the agreement with the teachers' union and that if it is restored, the ASUU-FG Agreement would be fully funded. Otherwise, no government has a justification for not implementing the agreement it signed with the university teachers union or proposing not to pay staff salaries for whatever reason.

To douse tension and put an end to the ongoing strike action by ASUU and similar impending threats of industrial disputes with the FG, it is my humble suggestion that the FG, and that includes the National Assembly, should, as a matter of urgency, propose and pass a supplementary Appropriation Bill to fund all agreements with the labour unions and make adequate provisions for the payment of workers salaries.

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