INTRODUCTION
I welcome all the Presidents and General Secretaries of the Nigerian affiliates of IndustriALL global union to this historic meeting.
HISTORY
IndustriALL Global Union was formed on 19 June 2012, at Demark founding Congress in Copenhagen by all the affiliate organizations of the former global union federations: namely International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF), International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) and International Textiles Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF).
OBJECTIVES
IndustriALL strives to achieve the following 10 Objectives:
• Build stronger unions
• Organize and increase union membership
• Fight for trade union rights
• Fight against precarious work (including
contract and agency labour)
• Build union power to confront global capital
• Promote industrial policy and sustainability
• Promote social justice and globalization
• Ensure equal rights and women’s participation
• Create safe workplaces
• Improve democracy and inclusiveness
IndustriALL challenges the power of multinational companies and negotiates with them on a global level. IndustriALL fights for another model of globalization and a new economic and social model that puts people first, based on democracy and social justice.
MEMBERSHIP STRENGHTH
IndustriALL Global Union represents some 50 million workers in 140 countries in the mining, energy and manufacturing sectors. It is a force in global solidarity taking up the fight for better working conditions and trade union rights around the world.
COVERAGE
IndustriALL Global Union represents workers in a wide range of sectors from extraction of oil and gas, mining, generation and distribution of electric power, to manufacturing of metals and metal products, shipbuilding, automotive, aerospace, mechanical engineering, electronics, chemicals, rubber, pulp and paper, building materials, textiles, garments, leather and footwear and environmental services.
OFFICIALS
The founding Congress elected the following officials; Berthold Huber, President, Jyrki Raina, General Secretary, Frans Baleni Vice-President, R. Thomas Buffenbarger Vice-President, Hisanobu Shimada Vice-President, Fernando Lopes, Assistant General Secretary, Kemal Ozkan Assistant General Secretary and Monika Kemperle Assistant General Secretary
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
60 members of the executive committee were elected at the founding Congress of IndustriALL Global Union on 19 June 2012.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE FROM SUB SAHARA AFRICA
Titular Members
Frans Baleni, South Africa
Irven Jim, South Africa
Prince William Ankrah, Ghana
Issa Aremu, Nigeria
Angelina Chitambo (Ms), Zimbabwe
Christine Olivier, South Africa
Substitute Members
Margaret Ndagile (Ms), Tanzania
Jane Ragoo (Ms), Mauritius
Beauty Zibula (Ms), South Africa
Simao Quibeta, Angola
Yuyi Sikananu (Ms), Zambia
Theodore Kubuya Mulumba, DRC
IndustriALL Global Union Africa
The IndustriALL Global Union Africa was founded in Johannesburg South Africa Thursday 25 October 2012 with Christina Olivier elected as acting Regional Chairperson till election of substantive Regional Chairperson. Regional Executive Committee Meeting held 22nd of April 2013 elected Comrade Issa Aremu, mni unopposed as the substantive Chairperson of IndustriALL Global Union, Africa Region. The Regional Secretary is Comrade Fabian Nkomo.
The affiliate unions in Africa include Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mauritius, Mozambique, Malawi, Swaziland, Madagascar, Zambia and Zimbabwe among others with total membership of some 1,000,000.
NIGERIAN AFFLIATES
Nigerian affiliate unions are National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN), National Union of petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), National Union of Chemical Footwear, Rubber Leather and Non Metallic Products Employees (NUCFLAMPE), Chemical and Non Metallic Products Senior Staff Association (CANMPSSAN), National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) and Steel and Engineering Workers Union of Nigeria (SEWUN). The total estimated membership in Nigeria is about 150,000 next to South Africa with total membership of some 498,000.
COMMENDATION
We commend the initiative of the Secretariat for this meeting with the agenda of;
1) The general view of the state of IndustriALL affiliates in Nigeria
2) organising the unorganized within the affiliates with big potential
3) Preparation of the Precarious Work Day 07 October and Africa Industrialisation Day 22 November
4) Formalisation of the IndustiALL Nigeria National Council
STATE OF THE IndustriALL affiliates in Nigeria
Discussing the state of the IndustriALL affiliates in Nigeria, cannot be separated from discussing the state of IndustriALL globally and in particular Africa. Comrade Fabian will no doubt abreast us about some details since the past three years IndustriALL was formed. I bear witness however that there has not been dull moment in Nigeria. Today we are inaugurating the IndustiALL Nigeria National Council. We are among the few countries in Africa that has done so.
We also recall that we hosted the regional EXCO meeting preceded by Women Conference in November 2013 in Lekki Lagos. We have also been active participants at regional EXCO and women committee meetings in Mauritius, April 2014, South Africa, October 2014 and Ethiopia, April 2015. However more significant is how we have been implementing the 10 point agenda of IndustriALL global union. What we are doing today is building union power. Tomorrow’s workshop on organizing skills will definitely enhance our capacity to organize the unorganized. We have been active in the fight against precarious work with some successes and setback.
LIVING WAGE CAMPAIGN
We fully identify with the living wage campaign of IndustriALL global union. Poverty wages have a devastating impact on workers. Almost 200 participants gathered in Stockholm for IndustriALL Global Union’s Executive Committee on 19-20 May. There we endorsed action on living wages, organizing, trade union rights and precarious work around the world.
Living Wage is central to the Decent Work Agenda. Happily Nigeria has a minimum wage structure which has been in place in the past 34 years.
However the subsisting minimum wage of N18,000 is due for a review this year in Nigeria. We hereby call on the Federal executive and the National Assembly to set the machinery in motion to review the minimum wage of 2010. Massive devaluation of the Naira and price inflation have eroded the current minimum wage rate. Indeed minimum wage has become a starvation wage. In 2010 when minimum wage was …$120 per month. Today with devaluation it is $81. 8 meaning that in real terms the minimum wage has fallen by 31.8 per cent.
DELAYED PAYMENT OF SALARIES
In addition to this challenge is the unacceptable delay and even non-payment of salaries largely in the public sector. An injury to one is an injury to all. If the governors who must enforce labour laws are not paying salaries as at when due, private employers may copy this bad labour practices.
COMMEND PRESIDENT BUHARI
We hereby commend President Muhammadu Buhari for the intervention funds to States to settle accumulated workers’ salaries. This is the first time we have positive and timely intervention on wage payment. The President has shown that with respect to payment of salaries, he is labour-friendly and labour sensitive. The President had earlier described a situation where federal and state workers were not being paid salaries as a disgrace to the nation. By approving the release of N713.7 billion intervention funds for states President Muhammadu Buhari has walked his talk on delayed payment of salaries.
The bail-out also included a Central Bank-packaged special intervention fund that offers financing to the states, ranging from between N250bn to N300bn; this would be a soft loan available to states to access for the purposes of paying backlog of salaries. The President and indeed all Nigerians must demand responsibilities from governors and all public officials. As governors you cannot be living on bail outs and debt reliefs, only to be chattering private jets for political meetings and wedding/burial functions of all types. President Buhari must block all wasteful leakages now and demand accountabilities from public officials. All public officials must travel commercial and travel economies. If possible they must be on KEKE NAPEP which they put their people. Austerity must start from upstairs.
BEYOUND INTERVENTION FUNDS, ITS TIME FOR DEVELOPMENT
The states’ governors must partner with the Federal government to re-industrialize their states. Governors must depend on companies and personal income taxes not oil money bail outs. The Governors Forum must declare state of emergency on industrial revival.
NO MORE CREATION OF STATES
Since the existing states have proven to be bankrupt, it’s time we perished the idea of creation of more states.
RAPID INDUSTRIALIZATION IS THE WAY
This is why we support the industrial policy of IndustriAll. Africa can only develop with industrialization. We must go the way of Aliko Dangotes of Africa, who has made the point that Africa cannot develop through trading but through manufacturing. We must add value to raw materials whether crude or gas, Cotton or gold, platinum or Irion ore. There must be beneficiation before we can employ millions of unemployed youths who are increasingly susceptible to crimes and Xenophobia in case of South Africa and insurgencies and terrorism in case of Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Kenyan Alshabab.
I call all Africa government to have a look at the Ethiopia model of industrialization. The Ethiopia Government is fast re-industrializing with appropriate industrial policy and incentives that have brought back textile industries with hundreds of thousands of jobs created. President Muhammadu Buhari must look at the Ethiopia model of re-industrialization.
ELECTRIFICATION
However there cannot be industrialization without industrialization. African governments must urgently invest in power projects to put an end to the existing power poverty and power outages. We must be weary of unhelpful privatization of power sector without electricity. Electricity in Africa should not be seen as a business to enrich few service providers but as indispensable critical success factor for industrialization and development. Also we must have stable macro-economic policies. There must be long term financing for development.
COMMEND THE NEW POLICY OF CBN ON FOREIGN EXCHANGE MANGEMENT
We hereby commend the new CBN policy on controlling the allocation of foreign exchange for development.
The CBN has commendably put a ban on importers from using the foreign-exchange market for some frivolous forty (40) items ranging from private jets to rice, wheelbarrows and Indian incense, Geisha (canned fish) and toothpicks, to even eggs is welcome and commendable.
TIME FOR CAPITAL CONTROL
Nigeria and indeed Africa currently suffer huge capital inadequacy. Nigeria’s foreign-currency reserves has sharply fallen by some 27 percent to $29 billion since the end of last September. CBN measures aimed at capital application and capital control in line with its statutory objective will definitely enhance domestic production in place of unhelpful luxury imports. It will also save the nation the current capital flight averaging some 1.3 trillion naira ($6.5 billion) a year, (almost half of national budget) on avoidable unnecessary job-killing imports.
Central banks worldwide ensure public control of capital for development without which capital on the loose can finance underdevelopment, cocaine growing as well as finance terrorism as America painfully came to realize in the wake of 9/11.
EXPAND THE RESTRICTIONS TO COVER AFRICAN TEXTILE MATERIALS
Indeed CBN should include African prints textile materials in its foreign exchange restrictions. Nigeria has comparative advantage in production of African prints. It is bad enough to illegally lift the ban on its import but it’s worse that we spend scarce foreign exchange on what we can and must produce locally.
DEMOCRACY AND INCLUSIVENESS
Hail Nigeria election. But worried about the greed of the politicians and self help.
Power without responsibility:- The ongoing brit-brat in Nigeria National Assembly must stop failing which labour will engage in mass action to compel them to do the work they are outrageously paid to do. They must also learn to be on duty. President Buhari must provide leadership on this.
BUHARI’s VISIT TO AMERICA
President Buhari must have a second look at his proposed visit to America under the condition of serial terror attacks. Buhari should not follow the unhelpful roads of his predecessors who spent more time attending wasteful summits abroad when the jobs at home suffer. African leaders must definitely think global, but they must ACT LOCAL. They must implement the wish list of the African electorate not the agenda of foreign powers and donors who put us in the mess in the first instance.
AU needs original initiative in Africa not in Washington and Paris. We must act local and think global, not running around the globe instead of staying at home.
TERRORISM AND LABOUR
Tunisia, Kenya and Nigeria.
The re-insurgence of terror attacks and the impact on labour.
Security too important to be left to the politicians. Labour must rise to support genuine government efforts to combat the vicious cycle of violence.
RECENT BOMB ATTACKS
Borno – 118 killed
Yobe – 5
Jos – 44
Kano – 1 (suicide bomber) several injured.
Zaria – 25
IMPLEMENT THE RESOLUTIONS OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE 2014 ON NATIONAL SECURITY
1. Invite States where matters of National Security challenges originate to the meeting of the National Security Council.
2. Hold National Security Council meetings quarterly except in times of emergency.
3. Establish an independent, multi-disciplinary national security think tank.
b. The Government should provide protection strictly to state officials at state expense. Other signatories requiring such services should co-ordinate provision of such services including the deployment and collection of charges.
c. Membership to the State Security Council should comprise; the governor of the State who should serve as the chairman of the council, deputy governor, military service commander, Commissioner of Police, director of State Security Service, representative of the State Police and the chairman of the traditional council.
4. Implement the Local Government Peace and Security Committee at the local government level. Membership to this committee should comprise chairman of the local government council, representative from the State Security Service, head of traditional ruler, Divisional Police Officer (DPO), representative of the State Police, military representative, Secretary to the Local Government (as Secretary of the Committee.)
5. Establish a National Border Patrol Guard (NBPG) under the Ministry of Defence to secure and protect the nation’s borders.
6. Appoint the Chief of Defense Staff and Service Chiefs based on merit and seniority.
7. Create a crisis management department in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Membership into the crisis management department should be drawn from The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and all other voluntary agencies. In addition, the Armed Forces and the Police can have.
8. Set up a minimum baseline for assessing the state of national security in the country.
9. Equip the Armed Forces and Police adequately. Review their welfare packages including pension
and gratuity.
10. Deployment of members of the Armed Forces for non-combat roles should be limited to national
emergencies.
UNITY OF TRADE UNION MOVEMENT
UNITED NLC
I hereby commend once again the pronouncement of the president of NIC in underscoring the importance of labour in the development of the nation. Justice Adejumo was right to say that workers constitute the “…engine room of the economy” adding whatever the differences, a united NLC is better off than a divided one. Internal conflict is a luxury to the labour movement in Africa given the challenges facing African workers today. Same for National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (NUMSA) and National Union of Mine Workers (NUM) crisis. Unions must be back to Basics; Build stronger unions, Organize and increase union membership, Fight for trade union rights
and Fight against precarious work (including contract and agency labour).
Thanks.
