Abstract
This essay will provide a brief outline of the industrial relations system of Nigeria. While some emphasis is given to past developments, it is hoped to develop the theme of the possibilities of change. During the coming five-year period of the Third National Development Plan and beyond the nature of wage employment will change and in some sectors come to approximate more closely to the pattern of the industrialised nations. The exigencies of this change — on wage structures, shift work and piecework, for example — will require changes in the industrial relations framework, and it is with such changes in mind that the present and past industrial relations system is here considered.
I would like to acknowledge the very able assistance of S. W. Sinclair, who served as my research assistant in the preparation of this essay.
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Notes
Federal Republic of Nigeria, Third National Development Plan 1975–80 (Lagos: Central Planning Office, Federal Ministry of Economic Development, 1975) p. 374.
T. M. Yesufu, An Introduction to Industrial Relations In Nigeria (London: Oxford University Press, 1962) p. 33.
P. C. W. Gutkind, The Emergent African Urban Proletariat (Occasional Paper No. 8, Centre for Developing Area Studies, McGill University, 1974) p. 6.
L. Krizsan, Aspects of an Analysis of the Labour Structure of the Nigerian Working Class. (Budapest Centre for Afro-Asian Research of the Hungarian Academy of Science, 1970.) Others might cavil at such a bold assertion. Gutkind’s deliberated conclusion includes this: ‘Whether the small urban proletariat under colonialism became a class in itself in a strict marxist definition … is still a matter in need of a great deal more research.’ Gutkind, op. cit., p. 55.
J. I. Roper, Labour Problems In West Africa (London: Pelican, 1958).
E. J. Berg, ‘Real Income Trends In West Africa’, in M-J. Hoskovits and M. Harwitz, Eds., Economic Transition in Africa (London: Routledge and Kegal Paul, 1964) pp. 199–238.
See also E. J. Berg and C. G. Rosberg, Eds. Political Parties and National Integration in Tropical Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964) pp. 340–81.
John F. Weeks, ‘The Impact of Economic Conditions and Institutional Forces on Urban wages in Nigeria’, Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies (13, 3 November 1971) pp. 313–39, also ‘Wage Policy and the Colonial Legacy; A Comparative Study’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 9, 3, October 1971, pp. 301–87.
P. Kilby, ‘Industrial Relations and wage Determination: Failure of the Anglo-Saxon Model’, Journal of Developing Areas, 1, 1967, pp. 489–520.
A guide to the debate is provided in R. Cohen, Labour And Politics In Nigeria (London: Heinemann, 1974) p. 214, footnote 37.
This is the opinion of M. A. Tokunboh, ‘The Changing Pattern of Industrial Relations in Nigeria’, Management In Nigeria, 2, 4, November–December 1966, pp. 153–155. Berg, op. cit., gives some details of the calculations of the award.
P. C W. Gutkind, ‘From The Energy of Despair to the Anger of Despair: The Transition from Social Circulation to Political Consciousness among the Urban Poor of Africa’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 7, 2, 1973, p. 196.
P. C. Iloyd, Power And Independence (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 214–19.
Another is contained in V. L. Allen, ‘The Meaning of the Working Class in Africa’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 10, 2, July 1972, pp. 169–90.
See also K. W. Grundy, ‘The “Class Struggle” in Africa: An Examination of Conflicting Theories’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 2, 3, November 1964, pp. 379–94.
K. Hinchliffe, ‘Labour Aristocracy: A Northern Nigerian Case Study’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 12, 1, March 1974, pp. 57–67.
P. Kilby, Industrialisation in an Open Economy: Nigeria, 1945–1966 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969) p. 286.
A. Sokolski, The Establishment of Manufacturing In Nigeria (New York: Praeger, 1965) p. 70.
For example, T. M. Yesufu, ‘Management Policies For Industrial Peace In Nigeria’, Journal of Business and Social Studies, 1, 1, September 1968, pp. 35–47.
Yesufu (1962), op. cit., p. 58. Wells and Warmington found that the company they studied, African Timber and Plywood, instituted joint consultation machinery before collective bargaining — a reversal of the typical British sequence of the time (F. A. Wells and W. A. Warmington, Studies in Industrialization: Nigeria and the Cameroons (London: O.U.P., 1962), pp. 55–73).
E. A. Cowan, A Trade Union Programme For Nigeria (Lagos: 1963), p. 27.
Kilby, op. cit., pp. 204–5. See also Institute of Administration, Report of Seminar For Trade Union Leaders (Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, 7–12 April 1969) and Report of The Board of Inquiry into the affairs of the Amalgamated Dockworkers, Transport and General Workers Union (Lagos: Federal Ministry of Information, 1971) p. 58.
M. O. Kayode, ‘The Management of Trade Union Finance in Nigeria’, in U. G. Damachi and H. D. Seibel, Social Change and Economic Development In Nigeria (New York: Praeger, 1973) pp. 138–46. Unfortunately he selected the year 1962 for his analysis. Perhaps the allocation of union funds has changed since then.
D. Smock, ‘The Political Role of Ibo Ethnic Unions’, in R. Melson and H. Wolpe, eds, Nigeria: Modernization and the Politics of Communalism, (Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 1971) pp. 320–41.
R. Melson, ‘Catology and Inconsistency: The “Cross-Pressured” Nigerian Worker,’ in R. Melson and H. Wolpe, op. cit., pp. 581–605. See also B. H. Millen, The Political Role of Labour In Developing Countries (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 1963) p. 27.
P. C. W. Gutkind, The Poor In Urban Africa: A Prologue to Modernization, Conflict and the Unfinished Revolution (Centre for Developing Area Studies, McGill, 1968) p. 382.
U. G. Damachi, ‘Industrial Relations in the Sapele Timber Industry: The Development of Collective Bargaining’, in U. G. Damachi and H. D. Seibel, eds., Social Change and Economic Development in Nigeria (New York: Praeger, 1973) pp. 98–118.
H. A. Turner, G. Clark, and C. Roberts, Labour Relations In The Motor Industry (London: Allen and Unwin, 1967).
E. J. Berg, ‘Urban Real Wages and The Nigerian Trade Union Movement, 1931–60: A Comment’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 17, 4, July 1969, pp. 615–6, footnote 9.
W. Oyemakinde, ‘The Futility of Price-Control In Nigeria’, Pan-African Journal, 6.3. Autumn, 1973, pp. 313–20.
R. Melson, ‘Political Dilemmas of Nigerian Labour,’ in U. G. Damachi and H. D. Seibel, Social change and Economic Development In Nigeria (New York, Praeger, 1973) pp. 119–37.
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Diejomaoh, V.P. (1979). Industrial Relations in a Development Context The Case of Nigeria. In: Damachi, U.G., Seibel, H.D., Trachtman, L. (eds) Industrial Relations in Africa. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16165-2_5
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