EDITORIAL: From Tragedy Into Farce

• Time To Review The Industrial Relations Format In Nigeria

PREDICTABLY the strike ended with a whimper! Very few people expected a protracted strike in the first place; they were relieved when the charade ended. 

This is not the way to run a process, oh well until the fire next time. Before the next turbulence government, labour, employers and civil society must accept that the present system of doing things has exhausted the limits of its possibilities. 

The structure of labour relations is antediluvian, be rocked on the mindset of the colonial era when labour commendably was at the forefront of the struggle for independence.  That era is over and a new way of doing things must be found. The failure of present system is glaring, we have one hundred and thirty-three million people trapped in multidimensional poverty. The figure which is now the conventional wisdom is possibly an underestimate. For a start, much of what is left of the middle-class are just one serious illness away from financial insolvency. There has not been any dividend of democracy. 

We must now accept the painful realisation of failure and start anew. Industrial relations must now be seen from a different more positive perspective. It must become the engine room for sustainable development and genuine growth. 

We must now have tripartite agreements based on inflation targeting, transiting the economy from consumption to production and eventually an export led economy.  There is no alternative to this and we have solid empirical evidence from Germany, Brazil, Scandanavia of the benefits of a cooperative system of labour relations. That transition away from the old system must begin now. The recent debacle highlights the fact that the present system is not just outdated, it is destructive. It is unlikely that potential investors will be enamoured of this system. 

The present government claimed in its manifesto that it is committed to build a “social market” economy which is commendable; it must now walk the talk by building a new system of labour relations which will move away from the established adversarial system into one based on long term planning and cooperation. This is the only way to achieve shared prosperity and a productive economy.