Organizing in the Public Sector: Challenges for Union Secretaries-as-Organizers
Introduction
It gives me great pleasure to be asked to make this presentation. This is because on one hand, organization is at the heart of union building and should be considered crucial by any one in a trade union who appreciates the importance of Ralph Chaplin’s “solidarity forever” in its assertion that “the union makes us strong”. Organizing is at the root of that strength that the union gives. On the other hand, this is the fist time I will be taking a particular union’s secretaries/organizers, apart from my union MHWUN, on a course in organizing.
I have had the privilege of being responsible as lead-facilitator of the NLC Harmattan School’s Organizers Course over the years and for taking the “trade union organizing” course in the NLC/Unijos Labour Law and Labour Relations Certificate course before proceeding for further studies two years back. I have also taken several unions (on the PSI platform) and specific unions on trade union issues in general. The specific context of today’s presentation on organizing, and in a specific union, i.e. NCSU, would allow us to move from general formulations to precise specificities of organizing, in the presentation itself and in the group work which it would precede.
This paper starts by putting organizing in perspective as the life wire of trade unions and trade unionism. It further considers the process and different approaches to organizing, stressing the organizing model, and presents campaigns as the major strategy of this approach. It then contextualizes the public sector in a broad sense and the civil service more particularly, as a context for positing necessary organizing steps for the repositioning of trade unionism therein. In its conclusion, we would together look at how the propositions the paper makes, could be brought to bear by NCSU for repositioning unionism in the public sector which would serve as template for the group work we would then do.
I should stress a point on the reformulation of the title of the paper as being for “secretaries-as-organizers” and not just for “secretaries and organizers”. A trade union field secretary is at one and the same time; administrator, educator, financial manager and organizer. As trade unions become large institutions though, this most important function of being an organizer often gets pushed more to the background. This situation needs to be changed.
Organizing, trade unionism, and trade unions
Organizing is a process, which involves bringing people that share some similar interests, values or aspirations together, so that by uniting they have a form of collective power, with which they could achieve their defined common goals. The terrain of these common interests of the persons being organized sets the context for what their common goals could be. These terrains in the simplest forms are where people live or where they work. Thus, the two most primary forms of organizing are community organizing and trade union organizing.
Every organizing involves building power. This is because power respects only power, and the need to organize in the first place usually stem from the fact that a power exists from which the people being organized want to win some concessions at the very least, or to wrest power from in the final analysis. Every form of organizing even where it is non-partisan is political. Organizing is not only political at its heart is the forging of solidarity. Organizing in general, thus entails movement building.
Our concern here, obviously, is with trade union organizing. Trade union organizing could now be stated to be the process of bringing workers together so that with the collective labour power rooted in the strength of their solidarity, as combination, they win improvements in their wages and conditions of work, from the employer. Trade unionism started and has always had to be built through organizing. Early trade union organizing was defensive, and even now, most trade union organizing, including return to the organizing model has been defensive. Trade union organizing could however be, and is advisable to be offensive as well, as we shall explain below.
Trade unions, according to Adrian White, were formed in England, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century by workers “to defend themselves”. This was because they faced “appalling working conditions” and meagre wages. The employers were scared of the possible power that workers could have with their solidarity, they thus instituted what they called, “anti-combination” laws, which made unions, or “trade clubs” as they called themselves then, illegal. But the common deprivations workers faced at work propelled them to combine, i.e. organize. This is trade unionism. Trade unionism is that set of activities which workers in seeking to better their lot by combining, carry out.
Trade unionism thus precedes even the formation of trade unions (Adewunmi, 1997). However, it compels employers to eventually allow for trade unions to be formed.
The formation of trade unions does not however guarantee the continuation of trade unionism, par se. It might seem strange to say that there are trade unions that do not practice trade unionism. It would also be a simplistic argument. To understand it in relation to our challenge of repositioning unionism and not just the unions in the public sector, some clarifications need to be done.
First, when employers become compelled to allow workers to legally form unions, they try to win the war of organizational, political and ideological control and domination over the workers even though they lose the battle of their unilateral direct control over the work place and their instinctive interest at denying the recognition of the right of workers to combine. How do they do this? This is done mainly, but not solely with (trade union and) labour laws.
We can see this in Nigeria when we analyze the laws starting from the Trade Union Ordinance of 1938, based on the Passfield memorandum, Decree No. 31 of 1973 and Decree No. 22 of 1978. It is beyond the scope of this paper to go into such analysis especially as there is still a session on labour law. But what we need to know here, especially with Decree No. 22 of 1978 is that it was meant to undermine organizing and trade unionism by creating financially stronger trade unions, using the automatic check-off system.
The law while always being the expression of the dominant class in any society (and in modern industrial society this is the property-owning class of capitalists, the employers), is never simply a one way thing. This is because, especially as society develops, no single class no matter how powerful can successfully rule for a long time using sheer force hard forms of power. This is what is often described as hegemony. Laws therefore have to express or at least seem to express the interest of the underclass as well. In the case of the restructuring of trade unions in Nigeria which DN 22 finalized, it also opened the room for unions to have greater might.
The problem here that we need to factor into understanding the issues at stake with the aim of this paper is that unlike in the days of house unions, when General Secretaries (where to survive a General Secretary might even be General Secretary of up to or more than twelve unions) had to justify that they were doing something or the other to better the lot of the workers (who used to pay check-off dues directly by hand), unions and union leaders after 1978, were presented with an incentive for taking things easy. This is with the automatic check-off dues system.
Another dimension of this problem is that, it made an issue that is always present in the working class and trade union movements appear in sharper relief; competition within the ranks. “Labour creates wealth” as the NLC’s motto asserts, but the workers do not own the implements of production, the tools with which labour creates this wealth. We have to sell our labour power to the employers who own such property to survive. Since the number of workers that the employer requires is usually less than the total amount of people who need jobs, the average worker is in a sense, in competition with other workers in the same trade or industry who stand in the same position of need for that job.
Unions in organizing workers run into competition over jurisdiction as well. To avoid or at least minimize this, most progressive unionists desire industrial unions. This, in the strict sense of it, means that all workers in an industry, irrespective of their professional calling, craft, or designation belong to one union. The 1976 -78 restructuring of trade unions in Nigeria, as the myth goes created industrial unions. But this is false as we all know. The problem of “poaching” and jurisdictional disputes arises out of this falsity.
There is the need for unions in the same industry or sector, for example the public sector, to have between them some understanding over this. Several attempts have been made in this regard, nationally and at state/local branch levels . But most of these have not been very fruitful. It is however important to note, especially after the Trade Union (Amendment) Act, 2005 was passed that in such situation, unions that enthrone the organizing essence of trade unionism are more likely to suffer less from “poaching”. This is a challenge for NCSU today.
The Organizing process
Organizing as we pointed out above is a process. We will now look at the components, of that process. We will do this taking note of the secretaries-as-organizers target group of this workshop. The principles do however relate to trade union organizers at national and local branch levels as well and we will look at these relations which are equally very important.
There are basically five interrelated stages or components of the trade union organizing process. These are: recruiting; building structures; information and education; building worker leadership; establishing workers’ networks (NLC, 2005).
Recruiting: This is the first step of the organizing process. This is especially so, in the Nigerian case, for organizing-as-unionization. What we mean here is what in American organizing for example they would describe as Greenfield organizing, which is where a union had not existed before and then you start with would-be members in a would-be branch. In this situation, it is important to identify a problem or set of problems that the would-be members would be very much concerned with addressing. In fact, in most cases, it is the workers in such establishment that do this, and reach out. But a secretary-as-organizer needs to do mapping of workplaces where potential members are, that are not unionized and be the one to reach out to them, identifying with them, these salient problems, and together with them, working out a strategy for addressing them, which of course would involve, but would not be limited to setting up a branch there. It is often deemed that with the automatic membership which is de facto subsisting in the public sector and particularly the civil service, despite the amendment of the Trade Union Act, green fields for organizing in the public sector do not exist. From my practical experience on the field though, this is not so. They do very much exist.
The recruitment moment in the organizing process is however not restricted to green fields. Even within organized workplaces, the secretary-as-organizer must identify sets of workers and even individual workers that could be won to the cause and membership of the union.
Recruitment must be seen as the crucial beginning point in the trade union organizing process which is a cycle.
Building structures: Structures ensure that organizing results in organization. Organization of course is crucial for the goals of the trade union to be adequately and consistently pursued at all levels. Building structures involve getting the recruited members to elect their branch committees. It is however not limited to this. In a lot of trade unions in Nigeria today, particularly in the public sector, despite provisions to the contrary in the constitution, structures at the local branch level, more often than not is limited to constituting the Branch Executive Committee. Probably the most important structure is mostly not set in motion especially after the initial heat of the period of unionizing a green field establishment. This is the branch general meeting, which in most unions’ constitutions is supposed to be held, monthly, but is hardly ever summoned except in emergency situations.
Other structures that could be established include: women committees; youth/young workers committees and; branch education committees. These structures, would serve to: draw in more and more members at the shop floor level into the process of providing leadership (and even thus building possible next layers of central branch leadership) and; provide for different peculiar identities within the workers which could otherwise be submerged (e.g. women, youth) to be combined. Women for example and young workers are more likely to be active in a branch that has and involves them in structures which are then integrated into the mainstream union processes .
Information and education: The workers and their workplace representatives require a broad array of information. Such information include: resolutions of the national and state council’s structures; workers rights in the workplace and society; grievance handling procedures and; pertinent issues related to the workplace, the industry/sector the economy and society at large.
It is very important to state that the forms and extents of information that a secretary-as-organizer makes available are often configured by the approach/model of organizing which such organizer uses, as we shall soon see. These do however have implications beyond the immediate intentions of such an organizer.
We must also stress that information dissemination is not a one-way direction phenomenon. The organizer needs to also find and develop ways of ensuring that necessary information about issues of concern to the workers at their workplaces, including their yearnings and aspirations flow towards the state council secretariat. Information for trade union organizing thus must be seen and taken as a two-way dynamic interaction phenomenon.
Education is of course very much aligned with information dissemination. It however is more dynamic in that it assists the workers and their representatives to better appreciate the intricate relations between so much information on one hand and their class interests, on the other. Education needs to be constant, consistent and systematic. One means of this is by ensuring that time is allotted for education sessions at each of the branches’ monthly general meetings. It does not need to have resource persons to be paid. Education programmes could be drawn up and comrades within the branch or from the state council structure could present the lead-offs for such education session discussions and every one is then allowed to discuss on this . A major means of regular and systematic information dissemination and education which at least one of the NCSU state councils has used is a newsletter/workers paper. We will talk more on this in the next section.
Building worker leadership: This involves mentoring workers’ leaders, both within and outside the branches’ executive committees to themselves be inspirations for rank and file members. It would also encompass the diverse activities and processes aimed at building the capacities of workers and their representatives at the branch/shop floor level.
This component of the trade union organizing process is one which “organizers” who are irredeemably committed to the Service Model, hardly ever give the necessary attention it deserves. It should be noted that for an organizer committed to the Organizing Model, building worker leadership does not simply mean building (some) workers’ leaders. It includes this, but goes beyond it.
Practically some tasks that this component requires include: assisting workers representatives to actively participate within the union’s structures (at workplace, state council and even national levels) as leaders; providing expertise to the workers as guidance for them to resolve their own problems themselves, as much as possible; training and advising workers, through practice as well, on the art of negotiation and; helping workers at the shop floor level to develop strategic thinking and approach to unionism.
Establishing workers’ networks: The strength of workers as we pointed out earlier is in their combinational solidarity. The power of labour which is inherent by dint of its place in the production process as the creator of wealth remains latent and becomes real, only when it is organized as a force.
This combinational power which organizing unleashes starts at the workplace. There are however several workplaces. It is through workers’ networks combining several workplaces that the fullness of the power becomes realized.
Establishing workers networks includes: linking workers in a union’s branch with workers from other branches in the same union (these could be through, but not limited to State Executive Council meetings, for example); linking up with workers in the same workplaces but belonging to different unions (Joint Action Committees is one of the possible instruments for doing this) and; exposing branch activists and organizers to national programmes (e.g. meetings and workshops).
In short, building workers’ networks could be through “joint actions, meetings and circulation of information” (NLC, ibid). These should be pursued locally, nationally and internationally. The internet, workers’ newspapers and magazines, PSI/NLC programmes are also some of the means with which such networks could be built. And finally, establishing workers’ networks should include forging closer links with traditional and tactical allies of the trade union movement, such as JAF/LASCO, progressive intellectuals and institutions, and social movements, locally, nationally and internationally. This would actually go a long way in strengthening the contents and forms of workers-to-workers networks-building.
In summing up this section, it is crucial to note that, trade unions, including those that see trade union aims as limited to economistic, bread and butter issues have learnt from practice that, to win improvements of the members, trade union work and struggle can not be limited to the workplace. Trade union organizing thus involves engagements at the broader social and political spheres.
Trade union organizing approaches/models
There are two basic approaches, or models of trade union organizing, as we pointed out above. These are the Service Model, and the Organizing Model. I would argue though, that, the Service Model or approach actually amounts more to quasi-organizing, as the essence of organizing which is building workers collective power, is ultimately sacrificed on the altar of the supposed secretary-as-technocratic-expert, who fails to realize that the monkey can perform gymnastic feats in the forest only because of the nearness of the trees! We shall now consider each of the approaches in relation to the trade union process, noting the superiority of the Organizing Model.
The Service Model:
The union is perceived as basically a services provider for members. The “organizer” in this approach is considered as an expert who knows all, sees all and does all for a compliant membership that simply pay dues (like customers paying fees for specialized services), and take orders from the national or state secretariat.
The secretary, in a union that operates this model is given all the necessary training (or at least is supposed to be), to be able to have all the answers and play a key role within the top-down structured approach to organizing of that union, as a whole.
This approach is especially common in industrial relations systems that operate either of the following: closed shop; union shop or; automatic check-off (which approximates to a union shop). It is also a model that fits perfectly with industrial relations systems situated within broader social relations dominated by a corporatist state which could be populist, fascist, or nationalist . It has well as been the dominant model in established “free market” economies, particularly the United States. In short, it could be argued that as unions get bigger and become institutionalized players in the modern industrial society, except where and when they had clearly set out alternative visions of a new society several ideological, political and organizational winds tend to blow the sails of their ships towards the tail wagging the dog, which is what the service model aptly represents.
The Organizing Model:
At the crux of this model is an approach aimed at and resting on; building workers power. It promotes active organizing, unlike the passive quasi-organizing characteristic of the Service Model. Thus, it is in using this approach that the organizing process earlier described can and is fully consummated. Education and mobilization of membership is crucial to this approach and the organizer sees himself or herself more as a facilitator, than as a service-provider.
The Organizing Model is based on an understanding of the fact that a union’s power and respect, credibility and relevance stem from the combinational power of the workers and not the expertise of any official or group of officials. Does this mean that this approach encourages organizers to be lax, ill-informed, and without any sense of expertise?
This is not at all the case. The fact of the matter is that the organizer within a union using this model needs to be even better informed, knowledgeable and versatile than the service provider “organizer”! At issue rather is that organizers within this model’s approach subordinate themselves to union membership, rather than seeing themselves as lords and masters over the very base and cause of existence of the union. This is described by comrades in the South African trade union movement where this approach is more common as “worker control”, involving mandate-seeking and report back mechanisms, even in the process of negotiations, for example .
The Organizing Model is often identified with Social Movement Unionism which promotes an active integration of fighting for broader social and aims with those of the workplace. It uses the strategy of campaigns a great deal and engenders massive proactive recruitment of members emphasizing in-depth interpersonal as well as organizer-to-mass interactions.
The Organizing Model was actually the first and initially predominant approach to unionism in most countries. It was returned to in the 1980s, due to the decline in unionism occasioned by the onslaught of Reaganism in the United States, starting with the SEIU. Will NCSU bell the cat in Nigeria?
Strategic organizing; building campaigns
The campaign method is a favourite for unions committed to the Organizing Model. The reason for this is that it best presents a strategic means for systematic organizing. Organizers of unions who use the approach should be equipped with the needed skills for building campaigns. It is apt at this junction to try having a clear understanding of what a campaign is, particularly for organizing.
A campaign in the strict sense is much more than what we often describe as “campaigns”. For example, we have been wont over the years to describe the series of stringed NLC rallies and then mass protests when petroleum products prices are increased as “campaigns”. Broadly speaking, this could probably be considered as open-ended campaigns. A campaign more properly speaking though is: a project. It follows the principles of projects in general and has its own project-type dynamics as well. More so, Organizing Model campaigns we would further point out are not just projects, but are mass projects.
An Organizing Model Campaign entails defining a clearly spelt out time-span for its duration and dedicating resources specifically for its pursuit. It is also very important that as with a project cycle, it goes through the formulation-implementation-evaluation(-reformulation), process, but with a difference which is defined by its being a mass project. The different stages must be made to encompass as much members of the union as possible, for the utmost of effectiveness on one hand and on the other, because it is indeed meant to build workers power, which is at the heart of the Organizing Model, as we pointed out above.
Relating this to our practice and unions’ structures, what this would involve is that, first, the process of formulation of such a campaign has to involve NAC/CWC, NEC (preferably as well, NDC), and also SEC, SAC, Branch Executive Committees and Branch General Meetings! Not only would such help in generating even brighter ideas than a top-down “campaign”, it helps to generate the needed spirit, mood and tempo for building a successful campaign. Just as with the formulation of the campaign, all these structures down to the rank and file must have implementer-roles to play in the campaign process throughout its duration (this would include but must not be reduced to the campaign-in-process monitoring and review activities). The process of evaluation must similarly evolve in a bottom-up manner, involving all these structures and as many members as possible (along with discussions, meetings, etc, statistical instruments such as questionnaires could be used for generating useful data for evaluation as well as information and ideas).
It is necessary to point out that a campaign is in a sense war. The conceptual origin of the word actually is even from military science. What this means is that, even where the National Secretariat/CWC in adopting the Organizing Model could play a key role in driving an Organizing Model Campaign, a specific (ad-hoc, i.e. specifically for that campaign) structure needs to be established. This could be seen as a Campaign Committee, of some sort which bears primary responsibility for driving the campaign.
For implementing successful Organizing Model Campaigns some other key points need to be noted:
• It starts with a major opening event. This could be a World News Conference, Rally, Procession, etc, which could attract great publicity;
• It has a clearly defined Campaign message, which could be aptly captured in the Campaign’s slogan or nomenclature (e.g. “Campaign for Quality Public Service” or “Better Health for All”);
• The campaign message itself stems from the Campaign aim which is arrived at during the Campaign Formulation part of the campaign’s project cycle;
• The Campaign’s overarching strategy must include a specific Campaign Communication Strategy;
• The Campaign Communication Strategy must take note of the different target groups and general public which the campaign intends to win over and how to couch its presentation of the defined Campaign message for each of these groups, taking cognisance of their peculiarities;
• The overarching Campaign Strategy itself must be fashioned in tune with a “campaign dramaturgy”. A campaign strategy involves tactics of escalating actions. Its “dramaturgy” is about how this is built, the art brought to this; much like how suspense and action are built into drama from the opening scene to its climax or anti-climatic ending;
• It ends with a major end event, which is well orchestrated for maximum effect or where and when in the process of its monitoring and review while on-going a need for elongating it is established, the earlier stated life-span is expanded. This is then announced to the world, also in a manner to elicit maximum effect.
It should be clear from the foregoing that Organizing Model Campaigns are not and cannot be the sole pursuit of one or two secretaries-as-organizers. They are projects of the union as a whole. Similarly, the Organizing Model itself is not something that could be adopted and utilized simply by this or that activist-organizer secretary in two or three state councils or branches of a union. For the approach to be thorough going and ultimately successful, it must be adopted by the union as a whole, as a union’s approach, and not merely the approach of some secretary or the other.
In summing up on campaigns, probably the most important thing to note is that a campaign is basically about; making an issue, the issue.
The public sector context of the challenges
Thus far, we have identified challenges and possible means for organizing in general, leading us to an appreciation of the Organizing Model and its use of campaigns. There are however always specificities that define the context of challenges and strategies. These are time and space-bound.
There are some challenges which any organizer irrespective of the sector, or industry, in today’s working world needs to put in perspective. These are defined to a great extent, by the three decades crusade of neoliberal globalization. These include: “reduction in formal employment” due to “capital restructuring” (Sha, 2006); declining wages which with a contracting formal workforce has resulted in depleted union membership and financial bases (Aye, 2006); increasing feminization of the labour force and; HIV and AIDS pandemic (ILO, 2004). These are all issues that have to be given serious attention to towards initiating a serious organizing to reposition unionism approach in today’s Nigerian public sector.
We could learn from how these have been engaged through organizing. A major tactic “is the intensification of trade union education directed at improving working class consciousness in the face of ravaging globalization” (Luck, 2006). This confirms a workshop of this nature’s as being in the correct direction. Stuart Howard also stressed the crucial place of “organizing globally”. Unfortunately while a lot of public sector unions in Nigeria are affiliates of PSI, this has not translated adequately to utilizing that approach. Igbuzor and Abdu (2006), have also stressed how such steps as: “building, nurturing and promoting radical change agents in the trade unions” and; breaking “all barriers which prevent or obstruct” the fullest of workers’ participation in the union and society at large, have been useful steps taken by unions that have played roles in some third world countries social transformation.
The PSI in its alternative strategy to “globalization” gives a perspective that would be quite useful for us in coming to conclusions on aims of trade union organizing in the public sector. It is that whatever other details that could go into the formulation of these should include demands for public sector workplace reforms which could promote workers participation and the enthronement of “industrial democracy”. We will see why this is very important for our organizing work in the public sector, below.
Workers in the public sector operate in a context which throws up grave problems but also hold out great prospects for organizing. In the first place, as a rule , they render public services. This ensures that there is direct contact in the work process with the members of the public, as citizens as much as, as clients. The people’s exasperated distrust of “government” rubs off on public sector workers. Poor wages, especially since the 1980s , have further probably, led a significant proportion of workers, being impoverished and sucked into the attendant collapse of values of the communal or the social to also seem to make such condemnation of public sector workers, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Public servants particularly civil servants are also bound by Civil Service Rules, which amongst other things include an oath of secrecy. These are procedural elements related both to entrenching an effective work process on one hand and seeking to foist the government’s ideological hegemony on the civil servant, on the other hand. In simple terms this amounts to trying to make us see ourselves as being in a sense part of government and thus ready to defend it rather than as employers exploited by the elite that run government.
On the brighter side of prospects though, we have amongst others concentration of workforce matched only by few factories in Nigeria. The close-knit, love-hate relations with the public could also be a positive plank in building an organizing campaign. These two specifically identified prospects will give souls to the two alternatives I would want to suggest as possible Organizing Model Campaigns for NCSU in the coming period.
Conclusion
This paper’s aim was; inspiring and equipping secretaries, as organizers, in the public sector, to be able to rise up to the challenges of organizing at this age and time. It was stemming from this aim that we situated organizing as being central to trade unionism and for trade unions that still uphold the ethos, values, goals and aspirations of the trade union movement.
The paper further analyzed the process of organizing, identifying its different components, in general. It then presented the two models or approaches to organizing, being the Service Model and Organizing Model, identifying with the Organizing approach. Campaigns were shown to be central to the organizing approach and the public sector context of the challenges at hand, was put in perspective.
At this juncture, in summing up, what we will do, and which would lead us into the contents of the group work is to ask ourselves; could the NCSU embark on an Organizing Model Campaign in the light of our discourse thus far? If the answer were “yes”, what could be its theme. I would end by proposing two possible suggestions drawing from our NLC and PSI experiences; a “campaign for one million more members” or a “quality civil service campaign”.
Thank you all for listening.
References
Adewunmi, F., 1997, Trade Unionism in Nigeria: Challenges for
The 21st Century, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Lagos
Aye, B., 2005, “Working Class Perspectives on Globalisation and Public Services Reforms” being a paper presented at the PSI September, 5, campaign Training for State–level leadership, held at Owerri, and MHWUN Tertiary Health Institutions workshop, September,27-29, held at Benin City
--------------,2006, “Neo-liberal Globalization in the 21st Century: Problems and Prospect for the Trade Union Movement”, being a paper presented at the December 20 – 22, Public Services International Workshop on “The Future of Public Sector Unions in Nigeria” Kaduna
Howard, S., 2006, “Organising Globally” in Transport International, No. 24, July – September
Igbuzor, O., & Abdu, H., 2006, “Trade Unions, Development and Social Transformation” being paper at the MHWUN, Education & Training Strategy Review and Planning Conference, May 21-23, held at Gusau
ILO, 2004, HIV/AIDS and Work: Global Estimates, Impact and Response, International Labour Organization, Geneva
LUCK, J., 2006, “The other side of Trade Union Work, Agents for Development” in Focus on Public services, No. 4/2006, Public Services International
NLC, 2005, “Strategising for Trade Union Organizing in a Globalised World” 3rd NLC Rain School Facilitators Resource and Guide for the Organisers Course, July 4 – 8, held at Calabar
Sha, Dung P., 2006, “Public Sector Reforms in Africa and their Impact on workers” being a paper presented at the MHWUN pre-NEC seminar, December 5, held at Jos
End notes
This same problem occurs at the international level between Global Union Federations but has been largely though not fully overcome through mutual understanding
In countries with large migrant populations, especially of different races, specific union structures are constituted for them, while also involving them in the mainstream union.
I would suggest that every trade union organizer has to read Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, particularly its Chapter 2, a copy of which I will drop with this paper
But not in a way to cause divisions and factionalization within the ranks at the shop floor
These of course are not mutually exclusive types of states
And even this, it must be understood, is not exactly a blank cheque guarantee.
Comrade Hassan Summonu (1st NLC President and Secretary-General of OATUU), actually recommended this South African model to Nigerian unions at the 9th National Delegates Conference of Congress in 2003.
Kim Moody is probably the most respected authority on SMU. www.labornotes.org is a useful site, which is organized around his SMU ideas and I would advise trade union organizers to study his work
Some State-Owned Enterprises into production are the exceptions.
See Aye, 2005
Being a presentation, on 10/3/10 at the Workshop on Repositioning Unionism in the Public Service, organized by Complete Consult, in collaboration with the Nigeria Civil Service Union, on February 9 – 11, 2010, at Ibro Hotel, Abuja
It gives me great pleasure to be asked to make this presentation. This is because on one hand, organization is at the heart of union building and should be considered crucial by any one in a trade union who appreciates the importance of Ralph Chaplin’s “solidarity forever” in its assertion that “the union makes us strong”. Organizing is at the root of that strength that the union gives. On the other hand, this is the fist time I will be taking a particular union’s secretaries/organizers, apart from my union MHWUN, on a course in organizing.
I have had the privilege of being responsible as lead-facilitator of the NLC Harmattan School’s Organizers Course over the years and for taking the “trade union organizing” course in the NLC/Unijos Labour Law and Labour Relations Certificate course before proceeding for further studies two years back. I have also taken several unions (on the PSI platform) and specific unions on trade union issues in general. The specific context of today’s presentation on organizing, and in a specific union, i.e. NCSU, would allow us to move from general formulations to precise specificities of organizing, in the presentation itself and in the group work which it would precede.
This paper starts by putting organizing in perspective as the life wire of trade unions and trade unionism. It further considers the process and different approaches to organizing, stressing the organizing model, and presents campaigns as the major strategy of this approach. It then contextualizes the public sector in a broad sense and the civil service more particularly, as a context for positing necessary organizing steps for the repositioning of trade unionism therein. In its conclusion, we would together look at how the propositions the paper makes, could be brought to bear by NCSU for repositioning unionism in the public sector which would serve as template for the group work we would then do.
I should stress a point on the reformulation of the title of the paper as being for “secretaries-as-organizers” and not just for “secretaries and organizers”. A trade union field secretary is at one and the same time; administrator, educator, financial manager and organizer. As trade unions become large institutions though, this most important function of being an organizer often gets pushed more to the background. This situation needs to be changed.
Organizing, trade unionism, and trade unions
Organizing is a process, which involves bringing people that share some similar interests, values or aspirations together, so that by uniting they have a form of collective power, with which they could achieve their defined common goals. The terrain of these common interests of the persons being organized sets the context for what their common goals could be. These terrains in the simplest forms are where people live or where they work. Thus, the two most primary forms of organizing are community organizing and trade union organizing.
Every organizing involves building power. This is because power respects only power, and the need to organize in the first place usually stem from the fact that a power exists from which the people being organized want to win some concessions at the very least, or to wrest power from in the final analysis. Every form of organizing even where it is non-partisan is political. Organizing is not only political at its heart is the forging of solidarity. Organizing in general, thus entails movement building.
Our concern here, obviously, is with trade union organizing. Trade union organizing could now be stated to be the process of bringing workers together so that with the collective labour power rooted in the strength of their solidarity, as combination, they win improvements in their wages and conditions of work, from the employer. Trade unionism started and has always had to be built through organizing. Early trade union organizing was defensive, and even now, most trade union organizing, including return to the organizing model has been defensive. Trade union organizing could however be, and is advisable to be offensive as well, as we shall explain below.
Trade unions, according to Adrian White, were formed in England, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century by workers “to defend themselves”. This was because they faced “appalling working conditions” and meagre wages. The employers were scared of the possible power that workers could have with their solidarity, they thus instituted what they called, “anti-combination” laws, which made unions, or “trade clubs” as they called themselves then, illegal. But the common deprivations workers faced at work propelled them to combine, i.e. organize. This is trade unionism. Trade unionism is that set of activities which workers in seeking to better their lot by combining, carry out.
Trade unionism thus precedes even the formation of trade unions (Adewunmi, 1997). However, it compels employers to eventually allow for trade unions to be formed.
The formation of trade unions does not however guarantee the continuation of trade unionism, par se. It might seem strange to say that there are trade unions that do not practice trade unionism. It would also be a simplistic argument. To understand it in relation to our challenge of repositioning unionism and not just the unions in the public sector, some clarifications need to be done.
First, when employers become compelled to allow workers to legally form unions, they try to win the war of organizational, political and ideological control and domination over the workers even though they lose the battle of their unilateral direct control over the work place and their instinctive interest at denying the recognition of the right of workers to combine. How do they do this? This is done mainly, but not solely with (trade union and) labour laws.
We can see this in Nigeria when we analyze the laws starting from the Trade Union Ordinance of 1938, based on the Passfield memorandum, Decree No. 31 of 1973 and Decree No. 22 of 1978. It is beyond the scope of this paper to go into such analysis especially as there is still a session on labour law. But what we need to know here, especially with Decree No. 22 of 1978 is that it was meant to undermine organizing and trade unionism by creating financially stronger trade unions, using the automatic check-off system.
The law while always being the expression of the dominant class in any society (and in modern industrial society this is the property-owning class of capitalists, the employers), is never simply a one way thing. This is because, especially as society develops, no single class no matter how powerful can successfully rule for a long time using sheer force hard forms of power. This is what is often described as hegemony. Laws therefore have to express or at least seem to express the interest of the underclass as well. In the case of the restructuring of trade unions in Nigeria which DN 22 finalized, it also opened the room for unions to have greater might.
The problem here that we need to factor into understanding the issues at stake with the aim of this paper is that unlike in the days of house unions, when General Secretaries (where to survive a General Secretary might even be General Secretary of up to or more than twelve unions) had to justify that they were doing something or the other to better the lot of the workers (who used to pay check-off dues directly by hand), unions and union leaders after 1978, were presented with an incentive for taking things easy. This is with the automatic check-off dues system.
Another dimension of this problem is that, it made an issue that is always present in the working class and trade union movements appear in sharper relief; competition within the ranks. “Labour creates wealth” as the NLC’s motto asserts, but the workers do not own the implements of production, the tools with which labour creates this wealth. We have to sell our labour power to the employers who own such property to survive. Since the number of workers that the employer requires is usually less than the total amount of people who need jobs, the average worker is in a sense, in competition with other workers in the same trade or industry who stand in the same position of need for that job.
Unions in organizing workers run into competition over jurisdiction as well. To avoid or at least minimize this, most progressive unionists desire industrial unions. This, in the strict sense of it, means that all workers in an industry, irrespective of their professional calling, craft, or designation belong to one union. The 1976 -78 restructuring of trade unions in Nigeria, as the myth goes created industrial unions. But this is false as we all know. The problem of “poaching” and jurisdictional disputes arises out of this falsity.
There is the need for unions in the same industry or sector, for example the public sector, to have between them some understanding over this. Several attempts have been made in this regard, nationally and at state/local branch levels . But most of these have not been very fruitful. It is however important to note, especially after the Trade Union (Amendment) Act, 2005 was passed that in such situation, unions that enthrone the organizing essence of trade unionism are more likely to suffer less from “poaching”. This is a challenge for NCSU today.
The Organizing process
Organizing as we pointed out above is a process. We will now look at the components, of that process. We will do this taking note of the secretaries-as-organizers target group of this workshop. The principles do however relate to trade union organizers at national and local branch levels as well and we will look at these relations which are equally very important.
There are basically five interrelated stages or components of the trade union organizing process. These are: recruiting; building structures; information and education; building worker leadership; establishing workers’ networks (NLC, 2005).
Recruiting: This is the first step of the organizing process. This is especially so, in the Nigerian case, for organizing-as-unionization. What we mean here is what in American organizing for example they would describe as Greenfield organizing, which is where a union had not existed before and then you start with would-be members in a would-be branch. In this situation, it is important to identify a problem or set of problems that the would-be members would be very much concerned with addressing. In fact, in most cases, it is the workers in such establishment that do this, and reach out. But a secretary-as-organizer needs to do mapping of workplaces where potential members are, that are not unionized and be the one to reach out to them, identifying with them, these salient problems, and together with them, working out a strategy for addressing them, which of course would involve, but would not be limited to setting up a branch there. It is often deemed that with the automatic membership which is de facto subsisting in the public sector and particularly the civil service, despite the amendment of the Trade Union Act, green fields for organizing in the public sector do not exist. From my practical experience on the field though, this is not so. They do very much exist.
The recruitment moment in the organizing process is however not restricted to green fields. Even within organized workplaces, the secretary-as-organizer must identify sets of workers and even individual workers that could be won to the cause and membership of the union.
Recruitment must be seen as the crucial beginning point in the trade union organizing process which is a cycle.
Building structures: Structures ensure that organizing results in organization. Organization of course is crucial for the goals of the trade union to be adequately and consistently pursued at all levels. Building structures involve getting the recruited members to elect their branch committees. It is however not limited to this. In a lot of trade unions in Nigeria today, particularly in the public sector, despite provisions to the contrary in the constitution, structures at the local branch level, more often than not is limited to constituting the Branch Executive Committee. Probably the most important structure is mostly not set in motion especially after the initial heat of the period of unionizing a green field establishment. This is the branch general meeting, which in most unions’ constitutions is supposed to be held, monthly, but is hardly ever summoned except in emergency situations.
Other structures that could be established include: women committees; youth/young workers committees and; branch education committees. These structures, would serve to: draw in more and more members at the shop floor level into the process of providing leadership (and even thus building possible next layers of central branch leadership) and; provide for different peculiar identities within the workers which could otherwise be submerged (e.g. women, youth) to be combined. Women for example and young workers are more likely to be active in a branch that has and involves them in structures which are then integrated into the mainstream union processes .
Information and education: The workers and their workplace representatives require a broad array of information. Such information include: resolutions of the national and state council’s structures; workers rights in the workplace and society; grievance handling procedures and; pertinent issues related to the workplace, the industry/sector the economy and society at large.
It is very important to state that the forms and extents of information that a secretary-as-organizer makes available are often configured by the approach/model of organizing which such organizer uses, as we shall soon see. These do however have implications beyond the immediate intentions of such an organizer.
We must also stress that information dissemination is not a one-way direction phenomenon. The organizer needs to also find and develop ways of ensuring that necessary information about issues of concern to the workers at their workplaces, including their yearnings and aspirations flow towards the state council secretariat. Information for trade union organizing thus must be seen and taken as a two-way dynamic interaction phenomenon.
Education is of course very much aligned with information dissemination. It however is more dynamic in that it assists the workers and their representatives to better appreciate the intricate relations between so much information on one hand and their class interests, on the other. Education needs to be constant, consistent and systematic. One means of this is by ensuring that time is allotted for education sessions at each of the branches’ monthly general meetings. It does not need to have resource persons to be paid. Education programmes could be drawn up and comrades within the branch or from the state council structure could present the lead-offs for such education session discussions and every one is then allowed to discuss on this . A major means of regular and systematic information dissemination and education which at least one of the NCSU state councils has used is a newsletter/workers paper. We will talk more on this in the next section.
Building worker leadership: This involves mentoring workers’ leaders, both within and outside the branches’ executive committees to themselves be inspirations for rank and file members. It would also encompass the diverse activities and processes aimed at building the capacities of workers and their representatives at the branch/shop floor level.
This component of the trade union organizing process is one which “organizers” who are irredeemably committed to the Service Model, hardly ever give the necessary attention it deserves. It should be noted that for an organizer committed to the Organizing Model, building worker leadership does not simply mean building (some) workers’ leaders. It includes this, but goes beyond it.
Practically some tasks that this component requires include: assisting workers representatives to actively participate within the union’s structures (at workplace, state council and even national levels) as leaders; providing expertise to the workers as guidance for them to resolve their own problems themselves, as much as possible; training and advising workers, through practice as well, on the art of negotiation and; helping workers at the shop floor level to develop strategic thinking and approach to unionism.
Establishing workers’ networks: The strength of workers as we pointed out earlier is in their combinational solidarity. The power of labour which is inherent by dint of its place in the production process as the creator of wealth remains latent and becomes real, only when it is organized as a force.
This combinational power which organizing unleashes starts at the workplace. There are however several workplaces. It is through workers’ networks combining several workplaces that the fullness of the power becomes realized.
Establishing workers networks includes: linking workers in a union’s branch with workers from other branches in the same union (these could be through, but not limited to State Executive Council meetings, for example); linking up with workers in the same workplaces but belonging to different unions (Joint Action Committees is one of the possible instruments for doing this) and; exposing branch activists and organizers to national programmes (e.g. meetings and workshops).
In short, building workers’ networks could be through “joint actions, meetings and circulation of information” (NLC, ibid). These should be pursued locally, nationally and internationally. The internet, workers’ newspapers and magazines, PSI/NLC programmes are also some of the means with which such networks could be built. And finally, establishing workers’ networks should include forging closer links with traditional and tactical allies of the trade union movement, such as JAF/LASCO, progressive intellectuals and institutions, and social movements, locally, nationally and internationally. This would actually go a long way in strengthening the contents and forms of workers-to-workers networks-building.
In summing up this section, it is crucial to note that, trade unions, including those that see trade union aims as limited to economistic, bread and butter issues have learnt from practice that, to win improvements of the members, trade union work and struggle can not be limited to the workplace. Trade union organizing thus involves engagements at the broader social and political spheres.
Trade union organizing approaches/models
There are two basic approaches, or models of trade union organizing, as we pointed out above. These are the Service Model, and the Organizing Model. I would argue though, that, the Service Model or approach actually amounts more to quasi-organizing, as the essence of organizing which is building workers collective power, is ultimately sacrificed on the altar of the supposed secretary-as-technocratic-expert, who fails to realize that the monkey can perform gymnastic feats in the forest only because of the nearness of the trees! We shall now consider each of the approaches in relation to the trade union process, noting the superiority of the Organizing Model.
The Service Model:
The union is perceived as basically a services provider for members. The “organizer” in this approach is considered as an expert who knows all, sees all and does all for a compliant membership that simply pay dues (like customers paying fees for specialized services), and take orders from the national or state secretariat.
The secretary, in a union that operates this model is given all the necessary training (or at least is supposed to be), to be able to have all the answers and play a key role within the top-down structured approach to organizing of that union, as a whole.
This approach is especially common in industrial relations systems that operate either of the following: closed shop; union shop or; automatic check-off (which approximates to a union shop). It is also a model that fits perfectly with industrial relations systems situated within broader social relations dominated by a corporatist state which could be populist, fascist, or nationalist . It has well as been the dominant model in established “free market” economies, particularly the United States. In short, it could be argued that as unions get bigger and become institutionalized players in the modern industrial society, except where and when they had clearly set out alternative visions of a new society several ideological, political and organizational winds tend to blow the sails of their ships towards the tail wagging the dog, which is what the service model aptly represents.
The Organizing Model:
At the crux of this model is an approach aimed at and resting on; building workers power. It promotes active organizing, unlike the passive quasi-organizing characteristic of the Service Model. Thus, it is in using this approach that the organizing process earlier described can and is fully consummated. Education and mobilization of membership is crucial to this approach and the organizer sees himself or herself more as a facilitator, than as a service-provider.
The Organizing Model is based on an understanding of the fact that a union’s power and respect, credibility and relevance stem from the combinational power of the workers and not the expertise of any official or group of officials. Does this mean that this approach encourages organizers to be lax, ill-informed, and without any sense of expertise?
This is not at all the case. The fact of the matter is that the organizer within a union using this model needs to be even better informed, knowledgeable and versatile than the service provider “organizer”! At issue rather is that organizers within this model’s approach subordinate themselves to union membership, rather than seeing themselves as lords and masters over the very base and cause of existence of the union. This is described by comrades in the South African trade union movement where this approach is more common as “worker control”, involving mandate-seeking and report back mechanisms, even in the process of negotiations, for example .
The Organizing Model is often identified with Social Movement Unionism which promotes an active integration of fighting for broader social and aims with those of the workplace. It uses the strategy of campaigns a great deal and engenders massive proactive recruitment of members emphasizing in-depth interpersonal as well as organizer-to-mass interactions.
The Organizing Model was actually the first and initially predominant approach to unionism in most countries. It was returned to in the 1980s, due to the decline in unionism occasioned by the onslaught of Reaganism in the United States, starting with the SEIU. Will NCSU bell the cat in Nigeria?
Strategic organizing; building campaigns
The campaign method is a favourite for unions committed to the Organizing Model. The reason for this is that it best presents a strategic means for systematic organizing. Organizers of unions who use the approach should be equipped with the needed skills for building campaigns. It is apt at this junction to try having a clear understanding of what a campaign is, particularly for organizing.
A campaign in the strict sense is much more than what we often describe as “campaigns”. For example, we have been wont over the years to describe the series of stringed NLC rallies and then mass protests when petroleum products prices are increased as “campaigns”. Broadly speaking, this could probably be considered as open-ended campaigns. A campaign more properly speaking though is: a project. It follows the principles of projects in general and has its own project-type dynamics as well. More so, Organizing Model campaigns we would further point out are not just projects, but are mass projects.
An Organizing Model Campaign entails defining a clearly spelt out time-span for its duration and dedicating resources specifically for its pursuit. It is also very important that as with a project cycle, it goes through the formulation-implementation-evaluation(-reformulation), process, but with a difference which is defined by its being a mass project. The different stages must be made to encompass as much members of the union as possible, for the utmost of effectiveness on one hand and on the other, because it is indeed meant to build workers power, which is at the heart of the Organizing Model, as we pointed out above.
Relating this to our practice and unions’ structures, what this would involve is that, first, the process of formulation of such a campaign has to involve NAC/CWC, NEC (preferably as well, NDC), and also SEC, SAC, Branch Executive Committees and Branch General Meetings! Not only would such help in generating even brighter ideas than a top-down “campaign”, it helps to generate the needed spirit, mood and tempo for building a successful campaign. Just as with the formulation of the campaign, all these structures down to the rank and file must have implementer-roles to play in the campaign process throughout its duration (this would include but must not be reduced to the campaign-in-process monitoring and review activities). The process of evaluation must similarly evolve in a bottom-up manner, involving all these structures and as many members as possible (along with discussions, meetings, etc, statistical instruments such as questionnaires could be used for generating useful data for evaluation as well as information and ideas).
It is necessary to point out that a campaign is in a sense war. The conceptual origin of the word actually is even from military science. What this means is that, even where the National Secretariat/CWC in adopting the Organizing Model could play a key role in driving an Organizing Model Campaign, a specific (ad-hoc, i.e. specifically for that campaign) structure needs to be established. This could be seen as a Campaign Committee, of some sort which bears primary responsibility for driving the campaign.
For implementing successful Organizing Model Campaigns some other key points need to be noted:
• It starts with a major opening event. This could be a World News Conference, Rally, Procession, etc, which could attract great publicity;
• It has a clearly defined Campaign message, which could be aptly captured in the Campaign’s slogan or nomenclature (e.g. “Campaign for Quality Public Service” or “Better Health for All”);
• The campaign message itself stems from the Campaign aim which is arrived at during the Campaign Formulation part of the campaign’s project cycle;
• The Campaign’s overarching strategy must include a specific Campaign Communication Strategy;
• The Campaign Communication Strategy must take note of the different target groups and general public which the campaign intends to win over and how to couch its presentation of the defined Campaign message for each of these groups, taking cognisance of their peculiarities;
• The overarching Campaign Strategy itself must be fashioned in tune with a “campaign dramaturgy”. A campaign strategy involves tactics of escalating actions. Its “dramaturgy” is about how this is built, the art brought to this; much like how suspense and action are built into drama from the opening scene to its climax or anti-climatic ending;
• It ends with a major end event, which is well orchestrated for maximum effect or where and when in the process of its monitoring and review while on-going a need for elongating it is established, the earlier stated life-span is expanded. This is then announced to the world, also in a manner to elicit maximum effect.
It should be clear from the foregoing that Organizing Model Campaigns are not and cannot be the sole pursuit of one or two secretaries-as-organizers. They are projects of the union as a whole. Similarly, the Organizing Model itself is not something that could be adopted and utilized simply by this or that activist-organizer secretary in two or three state councils or branches of a union. For the approach to be thorough going and ultimately successful, it must be adopted by the union as a whole, as a union’s approach, and not merely the approach of some secretary or the other.
In summing up on campaigns, probably the most important thing to note is that a campaign is basically about; making an issue, the issue.
The public sector context of the challenges
Thus far, we have identified challenges and possible means for organizing in general, leading us to an appreciation of the Organizing Model and its use of campaigns. There are however always specificities that define the context of challenges and strategies. These are time and space-bound.
There are some challenges which any organizer irrespective of the sector, or industry, in today’s working world needs to put in perspective. These are defined to a great extent, by the three decades crusade of neoliberal globalization. These include: “reduction in formal employment” due to “capital restructuring” (Sha, 2006); declining wages which with a contracting formal workforce has resulted in depleted union membership and financial bases (Aye, 2006); increasing feminization of the labour force and; HIV and AIDS pandemic (ILO, 2004). These are all issues that have to be given serious attention to towards initiating a serious organizing to reposition unionism approach in today’s Nigerian public sector.
We could learn from how these have been engaged through organizing. A major tactic “is the intensification of trade union education directed at improving working class consciousness in the face of ravaging globalization” (Luck, 2006). This confirms a workshop of this nature’s as being in the correct direction. Stuart Howard also stressed the crucial place of “organizing globally”. Unfortunately while a lot of public sector unions in Nigeria are affiliates of PSI, this has not translated adequately to utilizing that approach. Igbuzor and Abdu (2006), have also stressed how such steps as: “building, nurturing and promoting radical change agents in the trade unions” and; breaking “all barriers which prevent or obstruct” the fullest of workers’ participation in the union and society at large, have been useful steps taken by unions that have played roles in some third world countries social transformation.
The PSI in its alternative strategy to “globalization” gives a perspective that would be quite useful for us in coming to conclusions on aims of trade union organizing in the public sector. It is that whatever other details that could go into the formulation of these should include demands for public sector workplace reforms which could promote workers participation and the enthronement of “industrial democracy”. We will see why this is very important for our organizing work in the public sector, below.
Workers in the public sector operate in a context which throws up grave problems but also hold out great prospects for organizing. In the first place, as a rule , they render public services. This ensures that there is direct contact in the work process with the members of the public, as citizens as much as, as clients. The people’s exasperated distrust of “government” rubs off on public sector workers. Poor wages, especially since the 1980s , have further probably, led a significant proportion of workers, being impoverished and sucked into the attendant collapse of values of the communal or the social to also seem to make such condemnation of public sector workers, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Public servants particularly civil servants are also bound by Civil Service Rules, which amongst other things include an oath of secrecy. These are procedural elements related both to entrenching an effective work process on one hand and seeking to foist the government’s ideological hegemony on the civil servant, on the other hand. In simple terms this amounts to trying to make us see ourselves as being in a sense part of government and thus ready to defend it rather than as employers exploited by the elite that run government.
On the brighter side of prospects though, we have amongst others concentration of workforce matched only by few factories in Nigeria. The close-knit, love-hate relations with the public could also be a positive plank in building an organizing campaign. These two specifically identified prospects will give souls to the two alternatives I would want to suggest as possible Organizing Model Campaigns for NCSU in the coming period.
Conclusion
This paper’s aim was; inspiring and equipping secretaries, as organizers, in the public sector, to be able to rise up to the challenges of organizing at this age and time. It was stemming from this aim that we situated organizing as being central to trade unionism and for trade unions that still uphold the ethos, values, goals and aspirations of the trade union movement.
The paper further analyzed the process of organizing, identifying its different components, in general. It then presented the two models or approaches to organizing, being the Service Model and Organizing Model, identifying with the Organizing approach. Campaigns were shown to be central to the organizing approach and the public sector context of the challenges at hand, was put in perspective.
At this juncture, in summing up, what we will do, and which would lead us into the contents of the group work is to ask ourselves; could the NCSU embark on an Organizing Model Campaign in the light of our discourse thus far? If the answer were “yes”, what could be its theme. I would end by proposing two possible suggestions drawing from our NLC and PSI experiences; a “campaign for one million more members” or a “quality civil service campaign”.
Thank you all for listening.
References
Adewunmi, F., 1997, Trade Unionism in Nigeria: Challenges for
The 21st Century, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Lagos
Aye, B., 2005, “Working Class Perspectives on Globalisation and Public Services Reforms” being a paper presented at the PSI September, 5, campaign Training for State–level leadership, held at Owerri, and MHWUN Tertiary Health Institutions workshop, September,27-29, held at Benin City
--------------,2006, “Neo-liberal Globalization in the 21st Century: Problems and Prospect for the Trade Union Movement”, being a paper presented at the December 20 – 22, Public Services International Workshop on “The Future of Public Sector Unions in Nigeria” Kaduna
Howard, S., 2006, “Organising Globally” in Transport International, No. 24, July – September
Igbuzor, O., & Abdu, H., 2006, “Trade Unions, Development and Social Transformation” being paper at the MHWUN, Education & Training Strategy Review and Planning Conference, May 21-23, held at Gusau
ILO, 2004, HIV/AIDS and Work: Global Estimates, Impact and Response, International Labour Organization, Geneva
LUCK, J., 2006, “The other side of Trade Union Work, Agents for Development” in Focus on Public services, No. 4/2006, Public Services International
NLC, 2005, “Strategising for Trade Union Organizing in a Globalised World” 3rd NLC Rain School Facilitators Resource and Guide for the Organisers Course, July 4 – 8, held at Calabar
Sha, Dung P., 2006, “Public Sector Reforms in Africa and their Impact on workers” being a paper presented at the MHWUN pre-NEC seminar, December 5, held at Jos
End notes
This same problem occurs at the international level between Global Union Federations but has been largely though not fully overcome through mutual understanding
In countries with large migrant populations, especially of different races, specific union structures are constituted for them, while also involving them in the mainstream union.
I would suggest that every trade union organizer has to read Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, particularly its Chapter 2, a copy of which I will drop with this paper
But not in a way to cause divisions and factionalization within the ranks at the shop floor
These of course are not mutually exclusive types of states
And even this, it must be understood, is not exactly a blank cheque guarantee.
Comrade Hassan Summonu (1st NLC President and Secretary-General of OATUU), actually recommended this South African model to Nigerian unions at the 9th National Delegates Conference of Congress in 2003.
Kim Moody is probably the most respected authority on SMU. www.labornotes.org is a useful site, which is organized around his SMU ideas and I would advise trade union organizers to study his work
Some State-Owned Enterprises into production are the exceptions.
See Aye, 2005
Being a presentation, on 10/3/10 at the Workshop on Repositioning Unionism in the Public Service, organized by Complete Consult, in collaboration with the Nigeria Civil Service Union, on February 9 – 11, 2010, at Ibro Hotel, Abuja
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