The Ekiti State Rotten Wage Deal: A Wrong Precedence

The Ekiti State Rotten Wage Deal: A Wrong Precedence

When the news of the strike action by the workers in Ekiti State was reeled by the media few weeks ago, it created hope that the labour movement leadership at the state levels are beginning to make sense of labour unionism. However, the aftermath has created a sour in the mouth more than expected, with the rotten agreement between the labour leaders and the ACN/Kayode Fayemi-led government in the state. According to the agreement, the state government is to pay a paltry N13, 000 ($86) as minimum wage starting from May 1, 2011. This is contrary to the N18, 000 ($120) minimum wage signed into law few days ago by the country’s president, which is to be the minimum wage for any organized employer.

The N18, 000 minimum wage falls short of the N52, 200 ($348) minimum wage clamoured for by the central labour union, NLC. Therefore, the N13, 000 agreed to by the labour movement in the state is a step backward by all standards. When this new agreement is placed relative to the current wage of the workers, it is around N3, 500 minimum increment, as workers’ salaries last increment in 2009 is at around N9, 500. This put side by side with the rate of inflation, especially basic consumables including foodstuff, clothing materials, etc, the so-called N13, 000 wage agreement is nothing short of shortchanging of workers. In 2009, the civil service union reported that N35, 000 is officially being spent by the federal government on a prison inmate monthly. Therefore, it can be inferred that what the Ekiti State government and its labour leadership accomplice are saying is that an average worker in the state should live a life worse than that of a prisoner.

The general argument of the state government, under the controlled of a national opposition party, ACN which tout itself as a progressive party is that the state government does not have enough resources to pay workers and that the federal government cannot dictate the salaries states will pay its workers under a federal system. This argument is being echoed by virtually all the state governments, especially in the southwest. However, none of them has come out to reject the bogus salaries being set by the Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal Allocation Commission (RMFAC), the agency that set the salaries of political office holders, aside other functions. These states have members in this commission and have not raised any objection to the bogus salaries and allowances being given to politicians. Worse still, the government has not used the same argument of lack of resources to cut the pays of political office holders. According to economic data, political office holders officially cream off at least 30 percent of the revenues of the state as salaries, allowances and other overhead costs (which in the real sense means provision of state resources and facilities for political officers’ official and personal uses while teachers use their poor wages to provide basic facilities for work – pen, papers, etc).

Specifically, Ekiti state collects an average of N3.8 billion as monthly allocation from the federation account (including local government allocation, which is under the control of the state government) since November, 2010. In December, 2010, aside N3.8 billion collected by the state as monthly allocation, another N1.2 billion was given to the state from the excess crude account as special allocation. Assuming an average minimum wage of N60, 000 on the basis of the N18, 000 minimum wage, the government with an estimated 20, 000-strong workforce (including local government workers) will be spending N1.2 billion as salaries for workers monthly. This compared to what just about 300 political officers who cream off over N1 billion from the state resources as salaries, allowances and perks of office will show insincerity on the part of government. Yet, these are the workers that are to create wealth for the 300 political officers to loot, both officially and otherwise. Just recently, the same state government that cannot pay workers minimum wage, appointed over 160 former councillorship contestants as “Liaison Officers” of the government. These politicians, whose offices are unknown to the constitution, will be placed on hundreds of thousands of naira as salaries.

When the state government touted the need to embark on developmental project, it will not mention waste that goes with its capitalist development agenda. For instance, the same state government that wants to develop the state first wasted millions on media whitewashing under the guise of rebranding. While of course the PDP imposters, who reigned in the state for close to nine years have actually plundered the state resources and made nonsense of development in the state, it is not by embarking on media projects that this will be reversed, but by massive investment in public infrastructure and industrial development, coupled with improved living standard of the working class, as a basis of improving purchasing power.

If truly the government wants to undertake development, the labour movement should demand that the huge money being wasted on contracting should be used to improve the works department or ministry through massive equipping with machineries, equipment, manpower and materials, which will be able to undertake most of the construction projects of the government under an organized and planned development agenda, which aside saving cost will provide more jobs for the able bodied youths. Furthermore, it must demand serious cut in the pay of the political office holders to that of the workers. A genuine industrial development will mean that the government will commit public resources to build huge state farms and agro-allied industries to be managed by the workers’, government’s and communities’ representatives (and not political appointees who see such appointments as the price for their support for government), rather than handing over state resources to private individuals under guise of enticing private investors. At least the Ajasin/UPN governments in the second republic, with fewer resources, did not sell the state before developing the old Ondo State (comprising now Ondo and Ekiti States) These are what a genuine labour leadership should demand rather than grandstanding and helping the state government to shortchange workers.

But one cannot expect a leadership with the history of state collaborationism to do this. In the real sense, most state labour leaderships are pawns in the chessboards of their state governments. What this will mean is that in a place like Ekiti State, the labour leadership would have soiled its hands with its alliance with the ousted PDP impostor government, and thus become blackmailed specie with the new government – trying to seek its favour while grandstanding as workers’ voice at the same time. The end result is rotten concurrence with the government on major anti-worker policies, as seen in the current wage issue. What is happening to labour movement in Ekiti State is surely replicated in other states in the country. Unfortunately, the national leaderships of the labour movement itself is enmeshed in a lot of contradictions and ideological bankruptcy, which will make it to be jubilating at the announcement by President Goodluck Jonathan that he has signed the paltry N18, 000 minimum wage bill into law. This is nothing but a reflection of the failure of the leadership to mobilize the mass of workers for adequate minimum wage through massive door-to-door campaign, rallies from grassroots to the national level, education and enlightenment, etc; thus making it to rely on government’s magnanimity rather than the working people it supposedly represents.

A genuine leadership of the labour movement would have convened national summits of the working people (through their elected representatives), pro-labour organizations and left-wing movements to determine how the minimum wage will be fully implemented across boards through national mass actions of the working people and the pro-labour movement. This summits which will be organized from the grassroots to the national levels will also discuss how the N52, 200 minimum wage will be fought and won. But one cannot expect a labour leadership which, rather than building a working people’s political party with clear-cut revolutionary programmes and policies, asked workers to vote out anti-minimum wage politicians, when in the real sense most of the politicians are anti-poor, who will follow up with more anti-poor policies that will erode any gains of the minimum wage, if they pay it at all.

The immediate implication of the Ekiti rotten agreement is that many state governments and private employers may start to use this as a basis of whittling down the effect of the new minimum wage while introducing other policies that will take away any gain of the minimum wage. But there is still hope for the working people. First of all, they must start to play active roles in their unions. Currently, conventions and elections into various state leaderships of the NLC are being held; workers must demand for open debates on programmes, policies and directions of the labour movement for the next four years. They must demand open congresses debate platforms for all the major policies and decisions of the unions. They must compel all contestants, in states where elections are yet to be held to provide their programmes and manifestoes openly. Ultimately, they must demand for a working people’s party with a clear cut revolutionary socialist outlook that will serve as alternative to all the anti-poor capitalist political parties in existence today. They must demand summits across the country where workers will demand the political direction for the working and oppressed people in the coming period. Of course, working people are going to elect their enemies into power in the current elections, they must however start to build platform to resist any anti-poor policies after the elections, while building their own political alternative afterwards.

Kola Ibrahim (08059399178, kmarx4life@gmail.com)

Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife.