THE IMPACT OF TRADE UNIONISM ON THE GROWTH OF PUBLIC SECTOR ORGANIZATION IN NIGERIA
Abstract
Trade unions and trade unionism in Nigeria are said to be part of the legacy of colonilisation of Nigeria; as it wasintroduced by the colonial masters. This paper sets out to dispute this fact. This is because before the coming of thecolonialists there was in place some forms of trade unions and trade unionism. This paper relies heavily on historicalfacts as well as some existing literatures to conclude that there was in place some forms of trade union and tradeunionism in the area now named as Nigeria and that for cultural reasons trade unions and trade unionism asintroduced by the British colonial masters ended up creating more problems thank it can it solve.
Keywords:
Trade union, Unionism, Colonial masters, Federal Republic of Nigeria
- Introduction
Prior to the coming of the colonial masters, organisations of people engaged in craft or trade have existed in Nigeria;these organisations could be referred to as trade unions because they were organised to regulate trade practices, tooffer mutual aid and to fix prices –wages- for their services; such organisations included organisations of hunters, blacksmiths, carvers and weavers (Egboh, 1968; Ananaba, 1970). These organisations consisted of tradesmen andtheir children or other blood relatives -usually sons-, there were no employment contracts as known today as thechildren learned the trades and took over from their fathers (Fashoyin, 1980). The functions of these organisationssome of which still existed today in the villages, included: settling of disputes, regulation of relationship betweentradesmen, fixing of prices and organising the payment of tribute to the Oba – the King- (Lloyd, 1953).Organised trade unions officially started on Monday 19 August 1912 in Nigeria when workers in the then civilservice organised themselves into trade unions as was done in Sierra Leone (Egboh, 1968). One Mr Henry Libert – aSierra Leonean- summoned a meeting of about thirty-three indigenous workers, and by the fifth meeting on 15 November 1912 after advice was received from Sierra Leone, the aim of the union was decided and this was to promote the welfare and interests of the indigenous workers of the Nigerian Civil Service (Okonkwo, 1993). It wasknown then as the Civil Service British Workers Union but later changed to the Nigerian Civil Service Union shortly before independent (Yesufu, 1982; Smock, 1969).It remained an exclusive union of Africans of 1
st
class workers until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.This brought about an astronomical rise in cost of living and the union had to seek the support of other workersoutside the 1
st
class to agitate for 30% increase in basic salaries as the war bonus which was granted by the colonialadministrators (Ananaba, 1970). The union later discussed other grievances which included: discrimination in salaryscale in favour of Europeans against African workers performing same jobs, and abolition of the ‘frequent impositionof fines as a measure of discipline’ (Yesufu, 1982,: 96).In 1931, the Railway Workers Union and the Nigeria Union of Teachers were formed; before this time railwayworkers were under the Nigerian Civil Service Union (Egboh, 1968). The 1930 economic crisis aided the coming outof the then Mechanic Union out of the Nigerian Civil Service Union; although the former claimed to embrace allemployees of the railway; the clerical workers chose to remain with the later (Yesufu, 1982). With the passing of the Nigerian Trade Union Ordinance in 1938, the numbers of registered trade unions as well as memberships increased;for example, in 1940 only 14 unions were registered with 4,629 members but by 1944 this had increased to 91registered unions with over thirty thousand members (Nigeria Department of Labour Annual Reports, 1945).By 1975, under the military regime of General Murtala Muhamed one thousand trade unions were registered(Fashoyin, 1980). That same year, his government established a Commission of Enquiry to look into the pastactivities of the unions. Administrators were appointed to manage the unions as the unions were polarised and ideologically divided therefore creating labour problems for the country (Ibid, 1980). The unions were restructuredinto 42 along industrial lines and a Labour centre was created (Nigerian Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity,1976 vol.21). The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) was created in 1978 and the 42 industrial unions becameaffiliates (Northrup, 1978). This was given a legal backing through the Trade Union Decree. In 1989, the trade unionwas restructured again with 29 industrial unions affiliated to NLC through the Trade Union (Amendment) Decree 22of 1978 .While the workers were multiplying their unions, a new development came up in 1960; this was the urgentneed for a different union for the senior staff; this is discussed below.
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