The Unbecoming Gross Irresponsibility of Labour Unions: Like NUEE like ASUU
On August 18, 2022 the National Union of Electricity Employees, in an attempt to drive home its demands against its employers, demonstrated what has yet again become irresponsibility of labour unions in Nigeria. The union shutdown electricity supply to the entire country to call attention to their own welfare; such an irresponsibility. If government were serious, they should be prosecuted for terrorism because what they did was nothing short of an act of economic sabotage, but I know government will treat them with kids gloves to prevent escalation of tension. Shutting down the grid has nothing to do with any of the issues they were fighting for, their requests were purely personal welfare. In the same vein is the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) who have perennially kept students at home under the pretence that they were fighting to make the academic system better. False, the issues most times are for the improvement of their own welfare. I will delve into NUEE and ASUU issues in sequence.
I am not a fan of labour unions, but I am not against them fighting for the welfare of their members, it is their approaches that get me miffed. Labour unions are pressure groups and they are needed to pursue the rights of their indicidual members while shielding each and everyone of its own from bearing consequences of making demands. However, when demanding for good welfare switches to war with employers, the line has been crossed. Labour demands should not cross into armtwisting of employers. There are many options always available to drive demands home without sabotaging employers, sabotaging employers means only one thing — you are not interested in your job anymore, but when the employer is government, entitlement mentality sets in and workers arrogantly do the unthinkable like shutting down an entire power grid or keeping students at home, wasting their time.
What were NUEE’s demands?
I looked at the demands made by NUEE and struggled to find which one of it was strong enough to warrant the shutting down of the grid, I found none. The below were their demands;
a) Payment of entitlements of disengaged staff
b) That they should not be made to go through promotional interviews before being elevated
c) That the directive of government made through the Head of Service to blacklist the ex employees of the defunct National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) from taking up employments with any federal government agency be nullified.
I struggled to reason with what logic there is in shutting down the grid to press home the above, they are all personal interests that could be pursued through the courts if the employers refuse to listen. Going ahead to shut down the grid was an act of sabotage to the economy, it was a punishment of the masses. The labour activists are therefore mere pretenders who care only after their pockets. There is nothing untowards with this mindset, but when you have to achieve it by punishing the populace then it is wickedness overstretched by whatever standards anyone might want togauge it.
The secretary of of NUEE is Mr. Joe Ajaero who is not under employment in the power sector at the moment, his voice is only loud enough to achieve one purpose, to keep his wallet alive from check-off dues being paid by members who are still under employment. I suspect that a sizeable number of the executive members are also not in employment at the moment, but they are comfortable with the disruptions because that is what makes them apear relevant. I have worked in a unionised environment before and I know well enough that the union leaderssee the positions they hold as opportunities to enrich themselves, so they are always ready to give enough energy to chaos.
Small Note on ASUU
ASUU has perennially kept students at home for months to make demands of their employers, but the ridiculous thing is that they demand to be paid for all the months that they stay away from work, while students time are lost forever. This is pure wickedness and cannot be better described. If sacrifices must be made to make the system better, then the people to sacrifice should not be the innocent students who are not the ones responsible for making things better. As an undergraduate, I lost an irretrievable 9 months and some many weeks in trickles to ASUU’s loggerheads with its employers. I would love to sysmpathise with ASUU, except that they think about themselves only. One of their ridiculous reasons for downing tools is dictating what platform should be used to process their salaries and for this reason, students cannot be in school, while they will still be paid.
Like I mentioned earlier, I have worked in an heavily unionised environment before and I must mention that many times, the leadership of the unions are the problems and not the bulk of the members, the members only comply to avoid being seen as saboteurs not like they also like the approaches of their union leaders. The members also want improved welfare, but it is not all the time that they agree with the mode of activism. Let us imagine it that an electricity worker has a child in intensive care and because of grid shutdown, lost the child, sure the people shutting down the grid never thought of that, they only wanted to be seen as powerful enough when in fact they have no such power, but mere abuse of privilege.
At a point I had squabbles with unionists where I once worked, they increased dues, withoutrespecting the members enough to notify us, I demanded the Human Resource (HR) department to refund my money and consider me a non-member, the union leadership got in touch with me in a very rude manner and I responded with the same degree of energy, I won, but they told me that they would not fight for me if I ran into trouble, I let them know that it was an empty threat and I would not be needing them, I never needed them, my action gave courage to many colleagues to demand to be expunged, they also thought of it that the monthly dues they were paying wasn’t of any benefit to them.
The union leaders always have this condescending attitude in common, suggesting that they are bigger than everyone, they come insultive, the ASUU chairman was on Channels TV on August 17, 2022 and was carpeting the Honourable Minister of State for Labour over his comment, he stated that “once they are appointed into positions, they don’t think”, he went further denigrating degrees earned by graduands of private universities by claiming that their certificates are obtained with money, and insult to the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) that grants them accraditation.
I think it is time that government placed labour unions where they belong. I remember the Fashola treatment of Medical Doctors in Lagos, they were using strike actions as their weapon against the government, the governor through the commissioner for health at the time, Dr. Tola Kasali fired them all and employed new doctors, it was chaotic for a moment, but the striking doctors fell in line when they realised that government was resolute. It is until similar treatments are given that labour unions would realise that armtwisting employers is never a strategy, it is a mere lazy attempt to fight for welfare of members.
