Unionist Carpets NLC For Lack Of Ideology

The Leadership of the cen
tral labour movement in the country under the aegis of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has been berated for its lack of clear ideological cohesion over the labour movement and sundry issues affecting the workers.
A statement issued on Wednesday by the General Secretary of National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), Comrade Joe Ajaero and obtained by The Tide in Port Harcourt accused the leadership of NLC of not responding adequately to emerging national issues affecting the entire workers in the country.
Ajaero said that NLC has allegedly shown clear lack of the needed cohesion and depth to engage the government and others adequately on national issues.
He said the clear lack of capacity and capability by the congress is truly an expression of the inappropriate ideological foundations needed to articulate and project the various interests of the affiliates and diverse public views as a trade union movement as it concerns national issues.
The NUEE scribe who is also a factional president of the NLC said the labour body was operating ‘sub optimally, thus the results are clearly very little’ stressing that it has become worrisome that the Nigeria Labour Congress had unwittingly turned into a framework along the line to frustrate its original objective of protecting the workers.
Ajaero further said committed stakeholders in the labour movement are worried that given the avalanche of emerging national issues demanding creative responses from the movement, the congress leadership has shown  a clear lack of constructive responses and engagement with government and others.
He said that the congress failed to coordinate articulated response on the electricity tariff increase thereby denying the workers the ideological foundations of solving the problem but rather the dwelt mainly on the effect, when all Nigerians  know of the primacy of neo-liberal postulation of privatisation  as the cause and critical factor.
The labour leader said all the labour   leaders’ must be genuinely committed to speedily working through the process to reach acceptable compromises that would assist the labour movement build a new and vibrant movement and not pseudo outcomes that may undermine the workers and weaken the congress as a platform built on  sound ideological foundations.
Ajaero called for the rebuilding of solidarity and cohesion within the congress which broke down as a result of March 12, 2015 congress crisis in Abuja.

Philip Okparaji