STRIKE ACTION: A GLOBAL VIEW

Bibi Agarah

There are quite many ways workers can make their needs known to their employers. Usually, when this is done, the two sides find a way to negotiate on what would favour both sides. However, when both sides reach an impasse, industrial action begins. There are three forms of industrial action. However, one of them is one that Nigerian students have been forcefully acquainted with: strike.

The first recorded strike action took place in Egypt on 14, November 1152 BC when artisans staged an uprising, according to the Guinness World Record. 

The strike actions of trade unions have become the norm in Nigerian society. Although it is not uncommon in other parts of the world, the degree and severity to which they are done in Nigeria and the nonchalance of the Nigerian government to the demands of these unions only seem to have increased over the years.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities went on a two months warning strike and after then progressed to an indefinite one. This means students lost 8 months of school and the session that was supposed to end in October will end in July 2023. Students of public tertiary institutions now add two to three years to their proposed date of graduation and take that to be their true graduation year.

 Since its inception in 1978, the Academic Staff Union of Universities - though formed to cater for the interest of federal and state universities in Nigeria - has been largely believed to have done more harm than good to the Nigerian university education system. Many have called the union's incessant strike malicious and self-serving.

However, the Academic Staff Union of Universities is not the only academic trade union to go on strike since the beginning of 2022. The Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions started their industrial strike action shortly after ASUU. At the time of this writing, the UI chapter of the NASU is still on strike.

And this cuts across all sectors of the economy, not just education. In August 2021, the National Association of Resident Doctors, a union with forty per cent of the country's medical doctors went on an industrial strike action that lasted for two months while the nation was in the grip of the deadly pandemic - meanwhile, that particular strike was their fourth strike during the pandemic.

In developed countries, all parts of their society are necessary for the nation to function like a well-oiled machine with every cog and wheel in place. When this is disrupted, the government does everything in its power to ensure the machine runs smoothly again and society returns to order. In Seattle, a city in Washington, United States, the teachers went on an industrial strike and within a week they had ended negotiations with the U.S government and classes resumed immediately. 

However, this is not always the case. The longest successful strike in history lasted 6 years, 4 months, and 10 days. This strike was an action embarked on by workers of a private company in the United States. The countries with the highest number of strikes are Denmark, Iceland, and Canada; all of which are developed countries with what most consider the best labour laws enforced.

While some argue that strike actions can be advantageous when not used in excess, others think it is the only way to assure fair negotiations between workers and their employers. However, strike actions often achieve the desired results for workers. But it is believed that if workers do not attempt to negotiate with the federal government and instead conclude to go on strike, it is an abuse of rights.

Strike actions are not limited to Nigeria or developing countries alone. They are experienced everywhere in the world and both parties must compromise to get what benefits them. However, if they are unwilling to settle the differences, it would lead to something similar to what students have faced these past 8 months.