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Industrial Relations: A Development Dilemma

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Management Problems in Africa

Abstract

With the introduction of wage labour by the colonialists in Africa, the African worker was exposed to the exigencies of the world of work. It is therefore not surprising that the early strikes recorded to have taken place in Africa were in 1874, when Nova Scotian settlers in Freetown struck against the Sierra Leone Company for higher wages. There is, however, a controversy surrounding the exact date of trade union origin in Africa.1 Nevertheless, the first substantive union was formed in Lagos in 1905 by indigenous civil servants. In spite of these early developments, union growth and function in Africa, except for European settlers, tended to be slow and unrecognised until 1916 to 1917, when in the outbreak of the First World War and the revolution in Russia, a great interest was created in the institutions of workers’ power.2

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Notes and References

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Authors
  1. Ukandi G. Damachi
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Lagos, Nigeria

    Ukandi G. Damachi (Professor of Industrial Relations and Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration) (Professor of Industrial Relations and Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration)

  2. University of Cologne, West Germany

    Hans Dieter Seibel (Professor of Sociology, President, Research Associate, Visiting Professor of Industrial Relations) (Professor of Sociology, President, Research Associate, Visiting Professor of Industrial Relations)

  3. Society for the Advancement of Research on Developing Countries, Cologne, West Germany

    Hans Dieter Seibel (Professor of Sociology, President, Research Associate, Visiting Professor of Industrial Relations) (Professor of Sociology, President, Research Associate, Visiting Professor of Industrial Relations)

  4. Nigerian Institute for Social and Economic Research, Ibadan, Nigeria

    Hans Dieter Seibel (Professor of Sociology, President, Research Associate, Visiting Professor of Industrial Relations) (Professor of Sociology, President, Research Associate, Visiting Professor of Industrial Relations)

  5. University of Lagos, Nigeria

    Hans Dieter Seibel (Professor of Sociology, President, Research Associate, Visiting Professor of Industrial Relations) (Professor of Sociology, President, Research Associate, Visiting Professor of Industrial Relations)

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© 1986 Ukandi G. Damachi and Hans Dieter Seibel

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Damachi, U.G. (1986). Industrial Relations: A Development Dilemma. In: Damachi, U.G., Seibel, H.D. (eds) Management Problems in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05478-7_6

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