The reality of industrial relations in Nigeria today, for speaking out loud, is that workplace disputes (which is inescapable), hardly play out as positive occurrences. Neither are they ever well-managed, well-timed, and controlled so they could be springboard for win-win resolution in measure that present veritable potentials for enhanced national productivity

Whereas workplace conflicts are inescapable, as the absence of conflict does not mean that there are no threats to industrial peace.

However, ability and commitment of the social partners to negotiation and social dialogue in a manner that does not degenerate into militancy-induced irresolvable differences is the key to industrial peace and harmony

Unfortunately, adversarial industrial relations have been somewhat elevated to a national culture in dispute resolution. This has created disturbing road blocks to consensus building, and the factors at play are and not limited to:

i)             Lack of respect for terms of collectively bargained agreements because conclusions thereto were reached under duress in manner that usually create industrial peace of the graveyard, in a manner of speaking;

iii)           Indeed, some of the provisions of the labour laws are perceived to be crafted to favour some parties against the others. While some others are outrightly obsolete and ineffective to address modern workplace disputes;

iv)           There is also the consequence of the huge knowledge and information gaps on the part of some key actors in the labour movement. This dimension play out, many times, as intellectual emptiness, one that makes meaningful contribution to discourses that are game changing in the dynamics of national change management practically impossible.

v)            A number of these unreflective ideological mental models foreclose seminal engagement and an objective interrogation and therefore understanding of the national binding constraints that must be dismantled by government in order to achieve the national flourishing and sustainable prosperity that will in time translate to life more abundant for the Nigerian workers;

vi)           Unfortunately, many of the agencies at the heart of regulatory control of the dynamics, like the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment and others that exercise jurisdiction over work-related matters, suffer significant capacity deficits, professional creativity, resourcing including funding to carry out their statutory duties in measures that sometimes smack of abdication of responsibility;

vii)          The most worrisome dimension is the reigning industrial relations culture of impunity in the labour sector with significant elements of indiscipline and dishonesty in industrial dispute practices with such poor corporate governance issues as:

–              non-remittance of check-up dues

-sit-tight syndrome

–              lack of accountability

-absence of democratic tenets, and

–              dictatorial tendencies in labour relations

Need for fundamental shift in praxis

I have been a strong advocate of a shift from adversarial to a developmental industrial relations practices in Nigeria. I therefore like to restate this conviction by adding that this will only happen with a shift from traditional mediation approaches to transformative mediation as basis for recalibrating social dialogue within framework of tripartism

Transformative mediation essentially calls for reform to address the undercurrents that cause industrial disputes to degenerate into irreconcilable ideological differences, reminiscent of that carried over from the era of military rule and the old Marxist-Communist revolutionary aluta-type class struggle.

It demands concerted out-of-the-box innovative solution backed with the will power to breakdown and dismantle the mental model that is generating adversarialism. It is only within such patriotic commitment to the common good that the tripartite can reach agreement on a new model of partnership that will crystallize a developmental industrial relations framework for social dialogue and collective bargaining.

This is especially critical in view of the current economic climate and fiscal challenge that the nation is trying to navigate. This especially, as it affects pay and compensation related negotiations, so they can henceforth be done in good faith, and in manner that inexorably install technically-rational model to supplant the subsisting militancy-driven unsustainable approaches to securing wage and welfare concession for the Nigerian workers.

It requires shared vision, consensus building, regarding praxis, which has the potential for game changing current dynamics and catalytic for realizing the goals of national development objectives that in turn demands a capable developmental state with win-win partnership with the key players that make up the tripartite.

Unfortunately, due to the reign of adversarial IR, critical issues that should feature in social dialogue like labour skills upgrade through training and re-training, technologies upgrade and conservation of capital from physical and economic destruction, factor reallocation that feature in labour inspection and other regulatory activities, are now subdued in so far as they are not wage or welfare related

Recommendations

Going forward, tripartism is in such a precarious state that the government needs to urgently convene a no-holds-barred platform for national conversation where all the parties in industrial relations system could reach agreement on how they could work together to make the Nigerian social model work

In this regard, the National Assembly should enact as a matter of urgency all pending labour bills that can strengthen the institution of social dialogue and alternative disputes resolution (ADR) mechanism in Nigeria

The National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC) should be strengthened to accommodate larger stakeholders. Indeed, there is urgent need to transform the NLAC into the National Labour Council that will involve diverse stakeholders in the management of labour issues as done by the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NDELAC) in South Africa which is deeply involved in all labour and socio-economic policy formulation and implementation in that country

The present mandate of the Industrial Arbitration Panel (IAP) should be expanded to include capacity building of stakeholders and facilitation of research in dispute management and resolution

● Olaopa is Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, Abuja.

●(Being Statement made at the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association – NECA- 2nd Annual National Labour Adjudication Forum Held at the Abuja Continental Hotels, Abuja on Tuesday, 13th of February, 2024)

Source: The Nation