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THE TRADE UNION: THE WORKERS ENEMY

 We wish to make a reminder because of the current Industrial Relations situation in my country,  Nigeria. 

We want to show through two examples that the Trade Union is the enemy of workers. 


Firstly,  We carried out a redundancy exercise in one company I worked after six weeks,  the Trade Union declared a trade dispute against us. The complaints were: 

1. We did not inform the Union as per the law. 

2. We paid one month's salary in lieu of notice instead of two months. 

In truth,  the Union was correct while the company was wrong. 

During the conciliation meeting in the Federal Ministry of Labour,  after about two hours of meaningless discussion,  I offered a solution. Management will reinstate all affected staff provided they paid back the redundancy benefits they collected. The General Secretary of the Union rejected the offer. When the Director, advised that the Union refund the benefits back to Management and treat such amounts as loans,  the Union rejected the advice stating that the Union does not give loans to its members and informed the meeting that they were going for Arbitration. 


Secondly, In another company I worked,  I concluded the negotiation of a Procedural Agreement that has dragged for more than five years within six months. The only point of disagreement was the annual salary increment negotiation. Management said annual salary increments shall be based on the company's Performance Management System. 

The Senior Staff Association declared a trade dispute. When the SSA was advised by the Conciliator to return to the company to sign the agreement,  they opted for arbitration. 


The interesting thing about these two trades disputes was that I dealt with the General Secretaries of both the Union and the SSA. 

My conclusion is that the Union is the number one enemy of the workers. 


Next week,  we shall start to share the handling of public-sector union strikes. 

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