NLC fracas: Is industrial court’s injunction enough to broker truce?

After the controversial 2015 election of the Nigerian Labour Congress, preserving the unity and coherence of the labour movement by stakeholders, has been somewhat herculean. In this piece, KEHINDE OSASONA looks at the protracted face-off against the backdrop of the National Industrial Court’s injunction.
Background The National Industrial Court of Nigeria was created by an establishment Act as specialised tribunal, with the exclusive adjudicating power on matters relating to or connected with labour and industrial relations laws, (Section 7 (1) of the National Industrial Court Act 2006). The Act says that the Court shall have and exercise exclusive jurisdiction in civil cases and matters – related to labour, including trade unions and industrial relations; and environment and conditions of work, health, safety and welfare of labour, and other matters relating to it.
Echoes from the past The Nigerian Labour Congress and its allies had, in past years, through resilience and vibrant agitation, proven to the generality of Nigerians workers their capacity to resist unpopular policies of successive administration in Nigeria. Until the ill-fated election that eventually led to its factionalisation, pundits believed that the united labour voice had in times without numbers, salvaged battered situation for the teeming workers and Nigerians at large through their action. Following the election of its national officers at the rescheduled 11th National Delegates Conference held at the Eagle Square Abuja in 2015, and a counter special delegates’ conference of March 19 in Lagos, the congress has been embroiled in leadership crisis.
Th ree contestants namely; the General Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), Joe Ajaero; President of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Igwe Achese; and the then Chairman of Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN), Wabba Ayuba are currently at the centre of the whole fracas.
The NLC delegates’ conference was to replace the out gone president, Abdulwahed Omar, and other officers of the labour centre at that time. Wabba, the current NLC President emerged victorious eventually and since then, labour movement had known no peace. Consequently, Joseph Ajaero, Issa Aremu and Igwe Achese rejected the outcome of the elections, saying the entire process was faulty like the aborted delegates’ conference which was disrupted by the same group.
The last straw During a press conference after the crisis-ridden election, Comrade Aremu, General Secretary, National Union of Textiles, Garment and Tailoring Workers, was quoted to have said “the events of the last one month seem to have troubled our minds so much because that is not a trade union tradition.” “The happening in the congress is not meant to divide the NLC, but to make it stronger and more united. Disagreement, counter accusations are part of our heritage and tradition. Nigeria Labour Congress is made up of industrial unions.
NLC also has rules when rules are violated, members are encouraged to fight it and restore proper rules. That is exactly what we are doing. “What we are doing here is saying that the rescheduled election has followed the same pattern of the first one. Less transparent, cumbersome and the results not acceptable to us and we are doing so as bonafide members of Nigeria Labour Congress.”
Also articulating a position, Ajaero said, “we have clearly gone beyond the issues of the well-acknowledged duplicitous delegates’ conference of 2015 and the subsequent reconciliation efforts scuttled by the desires of Ayuba to continue sitting on the collective desires of Nigerian workers and their unions, to reform the movement and reposition it to serve Nigerian workers and the masses better. “The laws of the land are very clear on where the powers of each union resides. It is the unions that affiliate with the centres and not individual workers. The unions have taken their decision to leave and that is how it stands.”
NLC, ULC as pawns Rueing what transpired In 2016 when the organised labour went on nationwide strike over pump price, a source within labour movement lamented thus: “The two factions renewed their rivalry in 2016 during the fuel price palaver as a way of flexing muscle and mere showing of supremacy. But they played into the hands of government and they took advantage of that to play a divide and rule.
“The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, faction, led by Comrade Ayuba Wabba, and some members of the civil society, allies of the organised labour, went on a nationwide strike to force the Federal Government to reverse the N145 pump price of petrol. The strike did not enjoy the support of the Comrade Joe Ajaeroled United labour congress or the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, which pulled out at the last minute “At the end of the day, both factions ended up negotiating separately with the federal government,”
Also, during the 4th NLC National Gender conference in Abuja, Wabba was quoted to have said: “ The current administration is dragging its foot in constituting tripartite committee to negotiate a new minimum wage. “Against the backdrop of the harsh economic times and the impact on the working people, we cannot wait indefi nitely for government to respond in its own time. Th ough we have been told by government that the panel will be constituted, we enjoin the government to urgently sort out whatever constraint it is facing,” Taken a diff erent position, Ajaero at a public forum said, “the issue of minimum wage is an all-inclusive one, you cannot negotiate the minimum wage without the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association that handles the private sector knowing full well that majority of our unions are not all private-based unions, so you cannot shave their heads in their absence”. “What happened in the palliative committee even after disagreements, both my centre and the NLC and the TUC have to sit together in the interest of Nigerian workers to hold meeting and come up with a uniformed position,”
Court injunction Ultimately, the whole thing turned into a legal imbroglio. The disputants drew themselves before the Justice Babatunde Adejumo-led President of the National Industrial Court (NIC). Giving his ruling, the NIC urged labour unions to sustain mutual reconciliation instead of litigations that would further divide them.
He advocates an amicable out-of-court settlement of the leadership crisis. “Ordinary members of unions and the nation at large have high expectations from labour movement, given its historic role in the nation’s history. The importance of labour in the development of the nation, as workers are the “engine room of the economy cannot be overemphasised.” “The NIC equally has powers of conciliation in such matters as the NLC internal dispute, which he said are contained in section 20 of its Act. According to him, it is an implied duty of the court, which may warrant it to appoint a trustee for the NLC,” Justice Adejumo declared
Brokering truce A source close to the congress told Blueprint that it was true that the issue of labour centre rancour which is as a result of electioneering skirmishes, got to the industrial court. He said: “The NLC has challenged the ULC as not qualify to operate as a centre because according to labour law, they have not met up with the requirement.”
Veteran faults ULC A veteran labour leader, Hassan Sunmonu, had earlier faulted the reemergence of United Labour Congress (ULC) as a labour union, just as he questioned the sense of history of promoters of the group. “ULC was one of the four labour centres formally dissolved after their congresses for the current Nigeria Labour Congress to be founded in 1978.
Anybody/group can bear any other name, but not ULC because ULC was one of the four trade centres that melted to form the NLC,” Sunmonu explains. Meanwhile, a Senior lawyer, Akutus Eberechukwu has said the intricacies in the labour union has robbed it of its status as a veritable voice of the Nigerian workers and masses. “The movement has been politicised” he observes.