Inadvisability Of Tortoise’s Negotiating Style Whenever Organized Labour Parleys With FG -By Isaac Asabor

The grass shriveled up and turned a pale grey. Rivers and pools dried up. All day long animals scurried around looking for food and finding nothing. Mr. Tortoise was getting desperate. Every day he woke up to the sound of his wife and children crying. One day, while he was wandering the countryside looking for food he knew he wouldn’t find, he mobilized other animals, and they all went to seek help from the elephant who in the fairytale was considered to be a philantopist. Before they proceeded to see the philanthropist, they decided to adopt aliases markedly for identification purpose whenever they visit the elephant for assistance. Each of the animals that went with Tortoise, being the leader, to visit the Elephant cut across Rabbit, Grass cutter, Antelope, Deer, among others. Each of them adopted an alias as agreed for ease of identification whenever they are with the Elephant as he was approached for the umpteenth time before Mr. Tortoise whose alias was “All of you” met his waterloo.

As the story goes, each time the animals went to see the Elephant for handouts, the Elephant will package the whole handouts together, and scream, “This is for all of you”. By virtue of Mr. Tortoise’s alias being “All of you”, he will rush out from the gathering, and collect both the gifts meant for others and himself. When the rest of the animals complained, he will furiously charge at them, and ask, is your name “All of you?” However, Tortoise kept shortchanging his fellow compatriots in the animal kingdom until they protested and severally smashed him against the rock which he survived. Folktale has it that the gory incident led to Tortoise, till today, carrying about an uneven shell.

The dubious negotiating power of the Tortoise as analyzed in the foregoing has remained a magnum opus as it, to a large extent, defines the narcissistic scope leaders can go in betraying their followers or use the collective plight of their followers to curry favors from the power that be.

At this juncture, anyone that is familiar with the foregoing folktale would be tempted to ask, “Is the organized labor adopting tortoise negotiating style to deceive Nigerians?”

The foregoing question cannot be said to be out of place as not few Nigerians are insinuating in their comments that the organized labour has shortchanged the masses since it jettisoned its plan to carry out a nationwide strike on September 28.

The insinuation against the organized labour, no doubt, has unprecedentedly become rife after it recant it resolve to embark on the strike action which would have afforded it the prospect of ensuring that total reversal of tariff increases in electricity and fuel consumption is achieved. In fact, ethnic populations, regional groups, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and political interest groups, including the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) took a jab at the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) more than ever before for backing out from the nationwide protest.

It would be recall that the widely publicized protest had got angry citizens mobilized for result-oriented action until the negotiation team of the NLC and TUC made a U-turn after Sunday night’s consultation with SGF Boss Mustapha-led team that reportedly agreed to the temporary suspension of electricity tariff hike but retained the controversial market-driven pump price of fuel.

Expressing his view in ThisDay Newspaper of September 29, 2020, on the issue, the prodigious Reuben Abati said, “After being pushed, a combined team of the NLC and TUC finally announced that they would call out Labour on strike and shut down the country. They gave the Federal Government stringent conditions: a complete reversal of the hike in fuel price and electricity tariffs. Or else, Nigeria would be shut down indefinitely beginning from September 28, 2020. I was not impressed. I questioned Labour’s sincerity of purpose. I felt they were just playing a game. The biggest tragedy that has befallen Organized Labour in Nigeria is the thinking since 1999, that the leadership of Labour can be used as a stepping stone to a bigger role in Nigeria. Labour leaders use their positions to negotiate big benefits. They mouth progressive slogans and parrot aggressive rhetoric but it is all a lie”.
His view, no doubt, is in concurrence with the public opinion that has been trailing the issue since on Monday.

To me, the leadership of the NLC should not allow the people to continue to see it in a bad light, and above all it should not allow the people lose hope in its aims and vision, which is unarguably people-oriented. For instance, as gathered from its website, the aims and objectives of the NLC is expressed thus: “The fundamental aims and objectives of the Congress are to protect, defend, and promote the rights, wellbeing and the interests of all workers, pensioners, the trade unions and the working class in general; and also to promote and defend a Nigerian nation that would be just, democratic, transparent and prosperous through the attainment of the following objectives:

In fact, three of the objectives that caught my fancy are the ones that say NLC will continually strive towards the attainment of gender equity and improvements in the status and conditions of women in the world of work and society; To work for the industrialization and prosperity of the Nigerian nation and ensure protection of jobs, full employment and a humane working environment and to continually struggle to influence public and corporate policies and legislation on all issues at all levels, in the interest of workers, disadvantaged social groups and trade unions.

In the same vein, that of Trade Union Congress (TUC), another affiliate of the Nigerian organized labour cannot be said to be quite different from that of the NLC as stated in the foregoing.

To my view, our labour leaders should not relent in ensuring that they fight for the masses with an unsurpassed level of integrity they can exhibit as the people are now looking up to them, particularly in this era of neo liberalism which the government has resorted to.

Lastly labour leaders should learn from the lesson which the proverbial Tortoise, “Mr. All of you”, has left for humanity as well as always internalize Abraham Lincoln’s word that says, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” Simply put, it is high time the organized labour eschew the adoption of Tortoise’s negotiating style to deceive Nigerians.