THE MOOD of workers in the food industry was cheerless when it was learnt that an agreement that completely terminates gratuity in the industry has been reached and signed between the employers’ federation and the unions in the industry.
To totally remove gratuity is like setting a booby trap for the worker at the end of his working life. I think it is meant to facilitate the quick death of the worker immediately after retirement. Workers contribute immensely to the growth of companies. Machines cannot drive themselves. It is workers who make sure that organisational goals are met through effective activation and management of other factors of production.
The battle for the removal of gratuity and wholesome introduction of labour-outsourcing in the food industry has been on for years. The industry sphere has been hazy as the axe of the employers dangles menacingly at the neck of gratuity. Employers mounted strong pressure on the unions over the years and they both have rocked back and forth, until the unions finally yielded to the weak and soulless arguments of the capitalist bourgeois. Some people believe that this is the last stage towards the complete casualisation of labour within the industry.
The frightening news has been on for years before the hope-sapping agreement was signed. It is clear that the unions did negotiate on the point of weakness and could not have been able to defeat the employers, but it’s also clear that the level of intellectual vacuity in unions is frightening, yet labour leaders go to ILO every year to learn nothing. The quality of labour union leadership has really waned across all unions.
Looking at the timing, one will realise that the capitalist class thinks less or nothing about the working masses. Our country is changing fast for all the wrong reasons. The economy is progressing in the reverse direction. The ruinous, poverty-inducing and anti-poor capitalist programmes/policies of Tinubu/APC administration introduced in the past one year have deepened our misery.
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Being a Nigerian is becoming abysmally frustrating. Remuneration is low in Nigeria generally and very low in the food industry. Low wage leads to low contributory pension. A lot of people are under-employed. Most companies in the industry pay peanuts. Labour is becoming increasingly cheaper. The job market is replete with the unemployed; both skilled and unskilled. There’s already a clandestine practice in the industry, where employers will wake up one day and lay off staff and a month after replace them with fresh and young people with lower pay and through outsourcing. It is very clear that there’s a calculated attempt to muzzle the horse that threads the mill.
Social welfare benefits are non-existent in Nigeria. An average Nigerian worker struggle through thick and thin all through his or her working life. Our counterparts in advanced Western nations enjoy free housing, healthcare, education, affordable public transport and constant supply of electricity.
In Nigeria an average worker provides everything for himself and his family. He or she leaves work without savings. Even at sixty, his or her children are still dependent on him because of the impoverishment that our government policies have foisted on us.
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To totally remove gratuity is like setting a booby trap for the worker at the end of his working life. I think it is meant to facilitate the quick death of the worker immediately after retirement. Workers contribute immensely to the growth of companies. Machines cannot drive themselves. It is workers who make sure that organisational goals are met through effective activation and management of other factors of production.
Our roads are bad. Our transport system is almost unaffordable. Workers have to be at the bus stop for hours waiting for means of transport. Prices of food items have gone far above the reach of an average Nigerian worker. There is no effective mortgage system. There is huge housing deficit with lots of people sleeping in uncompleted buildings and shanties. Our hospitals are comatose and our people have resorted to faith healings at the hands of spiritual hirelings.
Workers are the geese that lay the golden eggs. The contributory pension is good but not enough. The Pension Fund Administrators (PFA) pay 25% to the retiree and the rest are spread and paid as peanuts monthly. Without gratuity from companies paid at the point of exit, a retiree is sentenced to a hard life at retirement. Gratuity is like a social welfare package.
Employers and government must demonstrate empathy. Whatever goes around comes around. To create the impression that those who have captured the state have the right to take it all and drop crumbs if they so feel, is not good for the promotion of social order, good life and some sense of justice, equity, and individual dignity. It is paramount for us to emphasise that socio-economic rights of citizens are not to be sacrificed at the voracious altar of the capitalist.
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The capitalist has seen that our skilled workforce and strategic location have made Nigeria an enticing destination for companies eyeing cost optimisation and talent access for round-the-clock operations. With gratuity gone, the hawk of outsourcing is menacingly hovering over us. Economic situation in Europe, America and advanced Asian nations are not what we have in Nigeria.
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Our roads are bad. Our transport system is almost unaffordable. Workers have to be at the bus stop for hours waiting for means of transport. Prices of food items have gone far above the reach of an average Nigerian worker. There is no effective mortgage system. There is huge housing deficit with lots of people sleeping in uncompleted buildings and shanties. Our hospitals are comatose and our people have resorted to faith healings at the hands of spiritual hirelings.
Our nation has no cheering side. Government that is supposed to regulate activities of investors has lost moral justification to do so. Government is supposed to provide an enabling environment for businesses to thrive. Employers are just struggling to survive. We are indeed doomed. A nation without patriots has no future.
Amechi, a trade unionist and pro-democracy activist, writes from Lagos.
