Baba Aye's

The October 1, bomb blast as Nigeria marked the golden jubilee of its flag independence seems to have thrown up more questions than answers. A series of statements had been issued before the blast signed by Jomo Gbomo, a pseudonym that had been used on several occasions as the voice of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND. And subsequent to the bombing, MEND claimed responsibility. The President of the Federation, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan immediately stated that the bombing was not orchestrated by MEND, while the Federal Government sought the prosecution of Mr. Henry Okah, who had been touted as the leader of MEND two years back, apprehended, tried and then released as part of a deal which granted general amnesty to “militants” in the Niger Delta, last year. Mr. Okah would later claim in an interview with Al-Jazeera that he had been asked by an associate of President Goodluck to retract the claim of MEND as being behind the bombing and rather lay the blame at the

Introduction The topic chosen as the theme of this historic Conference is very significant. It shows the growing concern of thinkers and practitioners with the workers in the informal economy and it shows that this situation is something that cuts across both the national and global arenas. It also points towards the fact that a lot of things remain unresolved about understanding the informal economy, particularly the working class component in it, with the phrase; “the informal worker question”. What I will try to so with this paper is to put in perspective the following: different views on what the informal sector is; some insights into how workers in the informal sector have been/are being organised locally and globally’ policy challenges in addressing the informal worker question for government and other stakeholders; possible challenges for informal workers’ organisations and particularly the emerging Federation of Informal Workers’ Organisations of Nigeria (FIWON). It is imp

Introduction Trades unions have become key components of most modern societies be such societies democratic or totalitarian, advanced capitalist or backward post-colonial. The nature of trade unions and trade unionisms are however quite different, even in otherwise similar societies. The United Kingdom and the United States for example could be considered as similar as societies could be (being the leading “liberal market economies” in the world), but they have quite different types of trade unions and approaches to trades unionism. Similarly France and Germany, two leading “coordinated market economies” in the West, have clearly different trades unions’ characteristics. Coming closer home; on one hand there are distinct traits that mark the industrial relations systems and trade union practice as heritages of our colonial past i.e. along English-speaking and French-speaking Africa lines. On the other hand, there are specific features of trade unionism and trades unions even in the cl