Recently, the Academic Staff Union of Universities suspended its eight-month-old strike. What are the lessons to be learnt from this?
Nigeria has a robust legal framework to resolve labour disputes. We are having disputes because the parties are not following the processes the way they should. We must have a sense of compromise. There must be mutual respect between the government and unions. If the government is too strong in a negotiation process, you will not get a better outcome because it will be like the government is dictating to the union. Also, if the unionists are too strong and they push the government to the wall, the outcome will also be the same.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But relative power in which two people will come to a compromise at the end, I will suggest that there should be respect for the processes. I will also suggest that there should be a time limit for every segment of the processes. Negotiations should have a time…
