A tale of two labour unions

The leadership tussle rocking the Nigeria Labour Congress(NLC) recently  came to the fore again when the General Secretary of National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), Joe Ajaero, and the President of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) Igwe Achese jointly   announced  the formation of   a  parallel  labour centre christened  the […]

The leadership tussle rocking the Nigeria Labour Congress(NLC) recently  came to the fore again when the General Secretary of National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), Joe Ajaero, and the President of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) Igwe Achese jointly   announced  the formation of   a  parallel  labour centre christened  the United Labour Congress (ULC), with Ajaero as its first president.

Before now, Ajaero has been having a running battle with the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), currently under the leadership of  Ayuba Wabba, over the control of leadership structures as well as the way the congress engages the various tiers and arms of governments on issues affecting workers welfare.

A source close to the Congress told Daily Trust  that Ajaero is fighting his cause based on a “gentleman agreement” reached after the immediate past NLC president, Comrade Abdulwahed Ibrahim Omar, completed his tenure, for the   organized private sector unions to produce the next NLC president.

 Omar, a member of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), succeeded Adams Oshiomhole of the Textile Workers Union, while Wabba  was  former president of the Health Workers Union of Nigeria, which is  of the public sector as Omar.

From the zoning arrangement, Oshiomole represented the private sector, while Omar represented the public sector and the next in line of succession should have been the organized private sector.

But Wabba at the rescheduled delegates’ conference held in March, 2015, in Abuja, defeated his major challenger, Joe Ajaero.

The source said that prior to the delegates election, the organised private sector unions held meetings where the group canvassed for the leadership coming from that group. After the election, the call for the “respect of the gentleman agreement” was re-echoed by interest groups among the rank and file of the Congress and  a total  rejection of  the outcome of the election.

 Wabba, however, dismissed such an arrangement and said that since the power sector was privatised,  Ajaero, who was the past secretary general of electricity workers’ union, no longer has a union because most of the privately owned companies do not allow their staff to join unions.

 On the threats posed by the formation of the ULC, Wabba said, “The fact of the issue is that they have only decided to go back to the congresses of their union and nothing more. The real workers are connected with us, we are offering leadership on a daily basis and we will not be bothered.’’

Wabba gave the NLC leadership a pass mark in the way it tackled the Imo State government over the sack of 6, 000 workers, saying, “We resisted it. When they proposed 3 working days in a week, we went down and stood with the workers. They [ULC] have not actually intervened in any sector but we have always been on ground.”

A source close to the NLC said that from all indications the NLC has been politicized and further fanned by ego and interest.

He said that before the delegates’ conference, there was this argument that the politicians were funding the conference and there was this major PDP vs APC interest within the NLC.

“There was this instance when Adams Oshiomole was said to have funded the first delegates conference that was scuttled, he paid for the international conference centre that was used, he (Adams Oshiomole) also used his power to bring General Muhammadu Buhari, who was then candidate of the APC, into the affairs of NLC, when his banner was being shown on AIT with Adams Oshiomole on ground to canvass for APC, Anyim Pius Anyim and Emeka Worgu also came down to solicit support for PDP/Goodluck and it was turned to a political rally,” he said. 

When Daily Trust contacted Igwe Achese of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) over the claims by Wabba that they had no foot soldiers and followership, he said that the NLC president is entitled to his opinion and that despite the denouncement of the centre by the NLC, it is waxing stronger daily and gaining more membership.

“ULC is a strong, united and organized. He [Wabba] should stop leading NLC to destruction and that is what the ULC is saying and nothing on earth can stop the ULC, not even the NLC.’’

On the issue that the ULC is yet to be officially registered as a labour centre, Achese alleged that the NLC itself is not a registered union centre even as he said that the  ULC  is ready  to operate based  on the ideals  of the international labour movement.

“There is no hurdle to scale to get registered.  The labour act as amended by former president Olusegun Obasanjo, gives room to labour centres to be created. Minimum of 12 unions is the number required by law.  As of today, some of the affiliate unions of NLC are not even registered but they are existing as labour centres.  So, it is not compulsory that one must belong to the NLC.”

Giving an insider account of the split, Comrade Sunday Alhassan, the National President of the National Union of Postal and Telecommunication Employees (NUPTE), in an interview, revealed that the division manifested at the May Day workers celebration, where some aggrieved members of the union, especially those who lost at the last delegates conference attempted to hold a parallel celebration at the Lagos stadium but were dispersed by the police.

“I say it is unfortunate because whatever they do, it is the entire Nigeria workforce that is going to feel the impact of their actions,’’ he said.

He argued that the supposed rotation of the NLC presidency is not valid and binding as the constitution of the NLC does not have that provision.

“It was an understanding which was being nurtured. We felt, looking at the history of the leadership of Congress, we discovered that those who have led Congress from over time- from the first president of congress, Hassan Somunu, till date, only one person from the private sector has led that organisation and that is comrade Adams Oshiomhole. After Omar’s exit, the private sector unions believed that if we worked together, we could have a go and that it is only fair that the public sector give us the opportunity to present the next president. And that was what led to the meeting of organized private sector unions which brought out this idea and threw it to the public sector unions. But I also want to mention that those who are canvassing for the private sector union leading the congress, they never got to the position they occupied in the NLC through the instrumentality of the private sector union. In 2007, all the people who contested for position of president later stepped down, leaving two persons from the public sector and Ede lost to Omar. By 2011 the issue of private sector and public sector did not come up because there was only Omar who stood for president, unopposed,” he said.

Surprisingly,  Ajearo, the pioneer President of the  United Labour Congress (ULC),  denied  that the newly formed ULC  is  a faction of the NLC but a mega arrangement among many trade unions who cut across the NLC, TUC and other unaffiliated trade unions to form a labour centre.

He boasted that the ULC has more than the required number of affiliate trade unions to get registration as a formidable labour Centre in the country.

He added that the new movement has a reasonable numbers of affiliates who already pulled out of the NŁC and the Trade Union Congress as well as many other trade unions who were not affiliated to any before.

Speaking to journalists in Abuja on the reasons behind the launch of a third labour centre in Nigeria, Ajaero said the only solution to the crisis that rocked the NLC is the formation of a new labour centre, different from the NLC and the Trade Union Congress.

“I think we should stop being fixated. The solution to the crisis is what has happened. We have sat down, we thought in various ways about it. How do we do this? We resolved to forget about it and forge ahead. We discovered that even the people we are equally operating with will not agree on any of those issues we have decided jointly,” he said.

He argued that there were four labour centres in Nigeria before 1978, but for Olusegun Obasanjo’s military government, who  forced  everybody to belong to only one centre, adding that:  “It is not the culture of Nigeria labour movement to have a single labour centre but for the military.”

Asked to name those trade unions who are affiliated to the ULC to make its registration a centre possible; Ajaero said  that is “immaterial”, adding that those who are kicking against their registration should not be bothered about that until the centre is either registered or refused registration.

He, however, hinted that more than 12 unions pulled out of the NLC alone to join the new movement, while substantial unions also left the TUC to join ULC, in addition with some unions who have not been affiliated to either NLC and TUC before.

Therefore, Ajaero added that the NLC and the TUC cannot fight them because the ULC was not an affiliate of NLC or TUC, because it has many other unions who are unaffiliated to them in the new movement.

He said the ideology of the new ULC is to put the workers at the centre of their activities; adding, “The workers first, which means if the worker is hungry, it will affect us. If he doesn’t have any salary increase, it will affect us. First and foremost, there is no other thing that is bringing us to this business if not the workers. So, that is the ideology, that is what will drive us and we would resist neo-liberalism because it has killed jobs in Nigeria, it has killed a lot of people. When jobs are killed, people die.”