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As part of efforts to put an end to the incessant strikes by the organized labour union in the country, the Director General of the Micheal Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies, (MINILS) Comrade Issa Aremu mni, has disclosed that the Institute will train all the labour union leaders in the country on strategic management of labour dispute.
The Institute DG disclosed this on Tuesday, 24th of August, while addressing Journalists during a 2-Days ‘Strategic Planning Workshop and Managements Retreat’ held at G-Pinnacle event centre, Ilorin, towards achieving four years developmental plan, initiated by the new management of the Institute.
“The issue of perennial strike by the organized labour union in our country can be traced to lack of knowledge of how to strategically handle labour dispute”
“There is a serious gap on how to handle labour issues, while for instance would Doctors through its association, NMA, write to government and they don’t reply? Why would you have memorandum of understanding you don’t respect? Why would you prefer memorandum of understanding instead of collective agreement because they are different, collective agreements are in-forceable, memorandum of understanding is just gentle men agreement, but unfortunately, Doctors may not also know that”
Secondly, “if there are disputes, why would anybody go on strike for two days, three weeks, Doctors for that matter? during a pandemic. Something is wrong, it’s an abuse or lack of knowledge on how to handle labour matters”
These are serious skills in managing labour matters, which Micheal Imoudu is meant for, we are going to intensify training at all level and beyond issue certificate, there will be proper practical test of understanding of what we are teaching.
He, however disclosed that “all labour unions that have just elected their leaders, we are going to do induction courses for them, at our institute as part of efforts to minimize, dispute between government and organized labour unions”
Added that, for every strike, worker are getting poorer, because some allowances are not paid and most importantly, it’s drawing country back economically.
Aremu added that, any organisation will perish without vision and strategic agenda, adding it is part of the institute’s effort to reposition workforce.
He also revealed that in the institute’s 40 years of existence, it had trained less than 100,000 workers out of a possible 70 million potential workforce both in the informal and formal sectors.
“With the new thinking of promoting entrepreneurer skills, we shouldn’t do it in a vacuum, it has to be strategic agenda. In the next one year, we want to train close to 500,000 workers, in two years one million”
“We will look for how to make this possible, who will be our strategy to connect to stakeholders who are interestingly serving on our governing council” Comrade Aremu said.
He said the institution cannot achieve its goals alone hence the reason the MINILS is partnering with the the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a German political party foundation associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany and was established in 1925.
It is Germany’s oldest organisation to promote democracy, political education, and promote students of outstanding intellectual abilities and personality.
Aremu said the German foundation is about 106 years old and since MINILS is about 40 years old, it has a lot to learn from them how they survive through organisational transformation.
Also speaking at the workshop, the chairman of the occasion who also happened to be chairman governing council of the Institute, Chief Frank Ovie Kokori expressed sadness over incapacitated of the Institute in discharging its purposes in recent past.
Kokori, a renowned labour man, however applauded the retreat initiative and expressed absolute confidence in capacity and connection of Comrade Aremu as new DG, said “Aremu, as one of my boys in labour, is highly exposed, experienced with wide network to turn around the institute to perform optimally, we are solidly behind him and watching him with eagle eyes” he said
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