For now, the
Aregbesola-led Osun State government will be in euphoria of a major conquest of
labour movement with the bankrupt sell out of workers by their leaders, over
the full and proper implementation of the nationally legislated N18, 000
minimum wage.
It will be
recalled that about two weeks ago, workers, arising from their congresses,
resolved to embark on a four-day warning strike to drive home their demand for
the implementation of the nationally legislated N18, 000 minimum wage, which
the Aregbesola government has stubbornly refused to implement. Indeed, workers
have held several congresses to call the attention of the government to the
need to fulfill its promise of implementing the minimum wage when the revenue
of the state improves. On the contrary, the government has been using various
dubious strategies including claiming to have implemented a N19, 001 minimum
wage to setting up a Wage Commission, whatever that means. In fact, since 2011
when workers went on a three-month strike to compel the government to implement
the new wage, the government, in a dubious propagandist manner it is now known
for, after some ridiculous increase on workers salaries claimed to be paying
N19, 001 minimum wage. In the real sense, what were added to salaries of a
majority of workers were between N5, 000 and N10, 000. The most brazen attempt
of government at avoiding the payment of a real wage, and crippling labour
movement is the dragging of workers and their unions to the National Industrial
Court with the aim of rubbishing the new minimum wage by claiming that minimum
wage is for the least paid worker, and not all workers. This again failed, as
the government was directed to implement agreement it signed with workers,
rather than trying to revise the new wage law.
Not satisfied
with this, the government has gone a step further to break the labour movement
by buying over labour leaders, and disorienting the rest, who are themselves
half-hearted. Thus, the statements credited to some labour leaders claiming to
represent workers of some unions: NULGE, ASCSN and MHWUN, that they did not
support the now-botched four-day warning strike, and the subsequent bankrupt statement
credited to national secretary of Joint Public Service Negotiating Council
(JPSNC) on the invitation of the state government, to the effect that
labourcentres (i.e. NLC and TUC) do not have right to fight for workers, call
workers to congress, or workers taking action on the basis of a congress, are
not accidental. They reflect the pinnacle of the treacherous attempt of the
Aregbesola government at crippling the labour movement in the state, in order
to continue its grandstanding regime. It surely found easy collaborators in the
spineless and unprincipled labour leaders who are prepared to sell their
birthright for visas to London. This itself is aided by the bureaucratic manner
the unions are run, where labour leaders are not subject to the democratic
control of and probing by workers. Moreover, the failure of the national
leadership of labour movement in fighting to a logical conclusion the
implementation of the N18, 000 minimum wage across the board and at all levels,
both public and private sectors, contributed immensely to the current travail
of workers in the state, and indeed across the country.
The treachery of the renegade labour
leaders
The renegade
labour leaders in their various statements claimed among other things that the
current Joint Negotiating Council (JNC) Chair, Mr. Adejumo in the state had
overstayed his term of office and cannot preside over meeting on minimum wage.
If this is true, it is unfortunate, and further reflects the bureaucratic
manner in which the unions are run, which has made many so-called labour
leaders to turn holding union offices into career because of the pecuniary
benefits and state patronages they get. But this excuse of the renegade labour
leaders is only a cover for their own betrayal. Are they just realising the
fact that the JNC Chair has retired now, when they have signed joint statements
and memo with the same person. How does the issue of who is the JNC chair stop
labour leaders from defending their members' right to a decent wage? Why use
the occasion of declaration of a warning strike to raise such issue?
Interestingly, these are labour leaders who have not called any press
conference or issued any statement on salient issues affecting their members
but were quick to organize press conference to condemn a warning strike. They
could not even give alternative approach to getting minimum wage implemented,
neither did they condemn the government's failure to honour agreement with
workers. But it was comfortable for them to claim that those leading the strike
issue wanted to extort government, as if the implementation of the minimum wage
will benefit only the union leaders! When one reads statements like these, one
is obliged to ask; how did the labour movement get to this rotten state of
affair?
If the
treachery of the renegade statelabour leaders is condemnable, the ridiculous
support given this treachery by some national labour leaders is heart-rending.
Some labour leaders led by the national secretary of the JPSNC, MrOmokhuade Marcus, were invited or more appropriately
mobilised by the state government, not to address the issue of minimum wage
implementation, but to assist the government in identifying which faction of
labour leadership to negotiate with. Of course, the government, having being
successful in dividing the labour movement leadership in the state, mobilised
the more pliable and useable hands in the national labour leadership to drive a
final wedge in the labour movement. Otherwise, why would government turn itself
into a labourarbitrator? Government knew those it was negotiating with over
minimum wage, so the issue of identifying what is happening in the labour
movement is self serving. It is only a cover for a more sinister agenda.
Unfortunately
for the working people, the government got a ready support in some spineless
labour leaders. The labour leaders did not of course invite the local leaders
to meeting to sort out the issue internally but rather mobilised themselves to
the well fueled government train, not to defend workers' struggle but to stab
the struggle in the back. According to the secretary of JPSNC, “The NLC, TUC and the JNC have no members. The members
belong to the unions. So calling a workers assembly for a strike is not known
to law. They do not even have right to call workers for that assembly. Only the
leadership of the respective unions has the power of attorney to mobilise their
workers to attend that gathering.” He
even went further to claim that JPSNC has more power over the central labour
unions. This is what you get when labourbureaucracy tries to build its own life
out of the union. Not even a word on the struggle of workers. These are labour
leaders who have not for once visited the state to support workers' struggle
over minimum wage. Interestingly, it is these same national labour leaders (or
dealers) that negotiated the N18,000 minimum wage. The question is, of what
importance is their intervention to the struggle of workers? No, they only came
for hatchet man job. Surely, workers will have to carry out revolution in their
unions to retrieve them from deadly bureaucracy!
Aregbesola government is anti-worker
The Aregbesola
government must have been happy that the little it invested in buying over some
labour leaders is yielding profit by postponing indefinitely the implementation
of the meager minimum wage. However, this ‘victory’ is at best pyrrhic victory
and will surely be short-lived. Indeed, this action, rather than cowing workers
will give them the clear picture of who they are fighting. The veil of deceit
of the administration and its bootlickers among labour leaders is being
removed, and workers sooner than later will mobilize with more ferocious energy
for total struggle not just for the implementation of the meager minimum wage,
but against all anti-poor, anti-worker policies of the government. More than
this, the recent underhand dealing of the Aregbesola government with labour
leaders in order to scuttle the agitation for the implementation of the minimum
wage has further exposed the bankrupt, anti-worker character of the government.
It has shown that against all grandstanding and propaganda, the government is
not fundamentally different from its predecessors – the Oyinlola and Akande
administrations. These regimes are clearly anti-worker. The Aregbesola
government is taking these ‘feats’ of its predecessors to higher level.
Reflecting the
perfidy of the government, the Aregbesola administration has not disclaimed the
position of workers that the government has earned close to a hundred percent
rise in monthly revenue to close to N4 billion since 2011 when the agreement
was signed. This is aside other emergency revenue: remittance from NNPC,
revenue from excess crude account (which is not captured in the budget),
remittance from subsidy fund, etc. On the other hand, the cost of living has
hiked with the rise in inflation (put at 12.5 percent CPI by January 2012 from
around 10.0 percent few months earlier, according to the statistics bureau),
mostly occasioned by criminal hike in fuel price by the Jonathan government in
collusion with the same state governments that are now denying workers a living
wage. While the Aregbesola government collects subsidy refund from the hiked
fuel price hike, workers have to use their meager salaries to subsidize the
effect of hike in fuel price.
Of course, the
government claimed it cannot commit all its resources on workers alone, but a
government that wants to develop the state should know that it cannot do that
when workers, who should carry out the so-called development projects, are poorly
remunerated. Of course, the government claimed to have given some
end-of-the-year bonuses (around 5 percent of total net salaries) to workers,
but this once-a-year gesture, while being welcome, it seems the government is
using as alibi to avoid paying a living wage. Otherwise, how can a government
that claims to be committed to workers’ welfare finds it difficult to commit
less 30 percent of revenue to workers’ poverty wages? On the other hand,
politicians and so-called ‘technocrats’ in government are earning several
multiples of workers’ salaries for doing practically nothing in comparison to
workers’ responsibilities. While government claimed it does not have enough
resources to make workers live above poverty line, local government council
executives, who do nothing than signing revenue cheques and letters of
identification, earn hundreds of thousands of naira, while advisers and
assistants, whose jobs, aside praise singing the administration in the media
and on social networks, are mere duplication of civil servants’
responsibilities are living large. This is just tips of the iceberg of various
prodigious projects where the state resources are being squandered. If the
government can get enough resources to pay its fat-cat officials and embark on
job-for-the-boys projects, it should have no problem paying workers a
nationally legislated wage.
Aregbesola government and its dubious
developmental projects
The government
will want to brandish its so-called ‘developmental’ projects as excuse for not
paying adequate wage to its workforce; but this is only a ruse. While of course
some projects are being carried out, the reality is that these projects are
generally haphazard, costly, and elitist, and have not fundamentally changed
the living conditions of the working and poor people in the state. For instance
in the education sector where the government claimed to have carried out
massive reform, the situation is still hopeless as public primary and secondary
schools are still in their poor conditions with no functional laboratories,
libraries, sport facilities, etc. Moreover, fees in the state tertiary
institutions have not fundamentally changed from the obnoxious level they were
raised to by the inglorious era of Oyinlola/PDP, while lecturers in the state
owned tertiary institutions are currently on strike over conditions of
service. Public primary and secondary
schools are still in their poor conditions as the so-called “massive” school
renovations only apply to about ten schools, out of over two thousand public
primary and secondary schools in the state. If it takes government almost three
years to renovate ten schools out of over two thousands, how many years will it
take it to renovate most of the schools that are now in terrible physical
conditions; nay provision of modern facilities for teaching.
Potable
pipe-borne water supply in the state can simply be termed non-existent; more
than two years after the government came to power. Road rehabilitation has not
applied to more than 70 percent of the local roads that are plied by most of
the citizens, even with the current debt-financed rehabilitation projects in
local governments. The local hospitals have not received any substantial
improvement in terms of expansion, deployment of modern facilities and recruitment
of adequate medical staff. Job creation in the state has only meant
slave-labour as the OYES, youth volunteers employed by the government are paid
poverty wage (of less than N10, 000) with no right to unionise or seek for
improved working conditions. In fact, they are disengaged every two years with
no disengagement benefits. Of course, the governor was quoted some months ago
that more than 80 percent of the disengaged volunteers have been gainfully
employed. Unfortunately, the governor did not tell the public whether it was
the state government that employed them, or it was the N10, 000 monthly
stipends that the volunteers used to get themselves employed. Yet, the state
government claimed to have saved N35 billion.
While of
course, government cannot solve all the problems in a jiffy neither are we
saying that only the state government can improve living conditions of working
people, it is suffice to say that with judicious and democratic use of state
resources, there can be enough resources to pay workers adequately and improve
the conditions of the people substantially. For instance, by reducing the huge
salaries and overhead for political office holders and so-called ‘technocrats’,
enough resources can be realized to provide improved infrastructures.
Furthermore, with massive equipping and refurbishment, public work ministry can
conveniently undertake various government projects including road construction,
school renovation, mass housing, etc. By putting execution of public projects
under the democratic watch, supervision and management of workers, communities
and professionals, the bureaucratic bottlenecks associated with public project
execution in a capitalist economy can be avoided. This will also provide
gainful, secure and decent employment to tens of thousands of youths. On the
contrary, the government, on the basis of its pro-capitalist and neo-liberal
orientation will not do these as such will reduce the huge amount going to the
coffer of political patrons. The government is committed to capitalist
political investors who have continued to hold the society by the jugular. This
is why we are in an era of ‘government has no business in business’, even when
the so-called private businesses are going under and are blighted by corruptive
tendencies at faster rates than even bureaucratically run state enterprises and
agencies. All of these have shown that against attempt by government at using
the issue of developmental projects to deny workers adequate wage, there are
genuine alternative of massively developing society, even with meager available
resources.
As said
earlier, workers, either in Osun State or elsewhere are watching with keen
interest, the treachery of both Aregbesola government, and their own labour
leaders (who are really dealers), and they shall rise again, this time bye
passing the rotten officialdom of their unions. More than this, they shall
rebuilds their unions on genuine democratic and revolutionary basis. They shall
realize the need to build, along with other oppressed people, their own
revolutionary political alternative to the ruling parties of privatization,
commercialization, and corruption.
Kola Ibrahim
P.O.Box 1319, GPO, Enuwa,
Ile-Ife, Osun State,
08059399178,
kmarx4life@gmail.com
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