What is your position on mass sack in the financial sector especially the banking industry?
We have always maintained our position that any reform targeted at jobs is not a very good reform. Reforms should engender job creation especially in Africa where for everybody that works, 10 people feed from that single salary. When you cut out one person out of job, you are also cutting about 10 people or even more out of food and that will be bad for us in Africa.
Unemployment rate is very high; employers are cutting jobs and sending more into the unemployment market which is a terrible thing. That is the aspect of the reform that we frown at. It has come at a very high cost to labour and that is very bad.
What is the situation now?
Realistically, it is fairly stabilised but you cannot rule out one or two instances of job cuts especially because this part of the world does not have good temperament for labour laws and industrial relations. Anything that happens whether in the home of the entrepreneur or in the office, the first thing the employer does is to toy with the human architecture of that organization and that is very bad. We still have one or two cases but it is not as rampant as it used to be in 2009 to 2011.
Casualisation has continued to thrive in the financial sector, what is your union doing about it?
We have tried to discourage that. It is unfortunate that government who should be an arbiter under the International LabourOrganisation (ILO) tripartite arrangement for the employer and the worker is also an employer and has turned against the worker. You find two powerful monsters waging war against very vulnerable worker; that is the situation we are in.
The government itself is also casualising its own citizens; we are aware that most agencies of government are also hiring people on casual basis and if government which is supposed to enforce labour laws and make sure best practices in industrial relations are respected is also involved in that kind of malpractice, then you see that there is no succour for the average worker. That is why it has been a very terrible battle.
The economic downturn, coupled with unemployment is not helping matters; even if you dissuade people from accepting it, they have spent several years having left universities or polytechnics with no jobs so if they have an opportunity of earning peanuts, they would prefer to go there and nobody will listen to you. Employers are capitalizing on the terrible state of our economy to unleash terror on the common worker.
Could you be specific on government agencies that engage in catualisation?
It is said that even in the Presidential Villa there are casual workers; I know there was a time they said FAAN had over 2000 casual workers in its employ. So, if government also hires people as casual staff, how do you expect that government to say no to catualisation? There is no way government will design policy that will affect its own business. That is the problem we have here.
What is your take on unrealistic targets set for employees?
That has really been stemmed unlike around 2006, 2007, 2008 and up to 2010. It was terrible; unassailable targets were given out to people but it is like the thing has really been stemmed. We are not averse to targets but what we are against is giving people unreasonable target. That is being handled and we believe that it could be better but it is still better than where we are coming from.
Unionists have accused companies of hiding under ‘repositioning’ to sack workers; is it fair to say repositioning is only about job cuts?
When employers talk about repositioning, they are just telling you that they need new business architecture; they want to rewrite certain things and do certain things in terms of reorganisation.
For me, most reforms that happen in any organisation always narrow down on the workers; you see a lot of workers being cut out of jobs. That has been the bane of workers in this country; every reform is targeted at reducing the workforce and that should not be it.
There are a lot of factors which affect the fortune of organisations and employers don’t have the temperament to look into those.
You say labour is always the first casualty; what other factors could be considered?
Managers of resources don’t manage them very well; there are leakages. You find out that in some organisations the executive management team lives in splendour; they live like governors, it is rife in my sector. There was a time in this country when you see managing directors of banks, you won’t be able to know whether they are managing directors or not. You would be wondering whether they were governors. They rode in long convoys of cars. So, extravagance can also create problems in the balance sheet of any organisation.
You are a delegate at the ongoing national conference, what will you bring to the table?
Labour, which I represent, is a pan Nigerian organisation; we are not primordial in our argument and positions. What we want is one Nigeria; we want a Nigeria where everybody will be happy and there will be equal benefits for everybody irrespective of where you come from. That is what we are pursuing at the national conference. That is why you see that labour has not been very loud because we believe that every other group here believes it has one interest or the other but we are the only pan Nigerian organisation.
The conference seems to be divided on the issue of oil subsidy; what is your position?
My position is that whoever is proposing removal of subsidy is being satanic. It is very criminal for anybody to even talk about it because that is the only thing the common man is enjoying from government. The common man pays for everything, even in public schools; the common man has to pay through PTA and the rest of them. You dig your water or go and take from the brook. Through communal efforts, you fix the road. So, government is not actually doing anything for the common man and the only thing he can enjoy is this subsidy. If there is a problem with subsidy, government should nip the problem or block all the leakages. To remove subsidy is to compound the problems of the common man or are we saying it is a sin for a man to be poor in this country?
How will the government get it right?
The government knows what to do; it is just that it does not want to do it. We have never lacked people who know what is right or what is wrong. The problem is that we have lacked people who have the political will to implement good policies. In terms of speaking during electioneering campaigns you see them speak grammar, they give you a lot of remarks that you say yes, these are good Nigerians, we never lack such people. But in terms of quality leadership, delivery of dividends of democracy, we have lacked people who have the will to do that.
