Workers Day: May Day! May Day (1)

The Day after tomorrow Sunday May 1,
2016 will be workers Day in most of the
free world. It is a day workers celebrate and interface with their employers in ceremonial mood. It is a day workers speak up and get answers on issues affecting them, even as the government appreciates them.
We join all well meaning persons to congratulate workers all over the world for their contributions to humanity. Their role in growing the economy, order as well as life and living as we have come to know it is huge. While the rest of the world may be celebrating on that day, we hope that the same will happen in Nigeria, where workers may have to come to terms with what they are up against.
The Tide thinks that labour may need to be circumspect and raise the mariners cry for help-May Day!!! – to save the straying and  sinking ship of labour, rather than party. Clearly, nobody goes dancing when his house is on fire. More than ever   before, labour needs to wake up, if not for themselves, for the suffering families of Nigeria.
Lest we forget, we must on behalf of labour and the good people of Rivers State commend the Governor of Rivers State, Chief Nyesom Wike for being the most worker-friendly Governor. Even when he was told by the immediate past Governor that he could not find the money to pay salaries, Governor Wike made history.
In one month, he cleared three months salary arrears, even with ghost names he inherited. He cleared six months pension arrears, all without bailout from the Federal Government. He got the system working again till date without any salary debt. We think that Rivers workers may need to pray for him because we fear that some persons may want to see that salaries are not paid again in Rivers State because there is no reason Rivers State should get paltry N3billion from the Federation as a month’s statutory allocation.
That said, we think that the organised labour should be ashamed of itself, that the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) is polarised to this day is pitiable. If the house is divided and destroying itself, how can it see the problems of the worker, how can it come to the rescue. This is a body that Nigerians depended on, in the past, but now, it needs help. Is somebody shouting May Day?
It is sad that at the time Nigeria had enough to save and much more for politicians to appropriate, no State agreed to pay the paltry N18,000 National Minimum Wage even to date. Added to the hardship faced by the worker, the value of the Naira has dropped beyond help and the prices of goods and services tripled yet the survivability of the worker does not seem to matter.
In the private sector, fellow Nigerians are simply abused. In some of the firms they are paid like beggars, treated as disposables   and removed from work without severance benefits. Some work for as long as 10 years as casuals and some persons just speak about it and do nothing. The worker stands alone, unhelped, misunderstood, unsung. These are our own people.
In the triangle of this oddity, the worker loses his voice, he cannot cry, he is afraid to speak to his employer and to his union leaders whom he cannot reach. A society of frustrated and oppressed people cannot be safe for anyone and Nigeria can deny all it can but the result is evident.
The polarisation of the NLC runs through the States, even the affiliate unions. It is either that some persons have allowed partisan politics to hold them captive or that their personal interest rather than  that of the worker is playing out. No labour leader that has the worker at heart would make labour elections chaotic. Of course, No one would lose election and create and sustain a parallel government.
While we  commend one of the factions of the NLC for presenting the demand for a new National Minimum Wage of N56,000, we hope that the other faction will not be used to controvert it and give government the reason to trivialise this matter again. The way it is going, the workforce  may have to deal with the union leaders or impose a recall of those pretending to  lead them.