Enforcement of Collective Agreements in Nigeria: Need for Legislative Intervention

Abstract

Introduction

“Each needs the other: capital cannot do without labour, nor labour without capital.”

 Pope Leo XVII

Nigeria has in recent times witnessed a phenomenal increase in the number of industrial unrest. Strikes, threats of strike, lookouts, unending disputes over wages and better conditions of service has become a common feature of the Nigerian industrial sector.¹ This development portends no good to any government, be it civilian or military. The attendant negative and damaging socio-economic consequences on the economy that is already fragile are manifold. First, it stifles desired growth and development in the economy since incessant strike action leads to loss' of otherwise useful and productive man-hours. Secondly, government's committed desire to encourage foreign investment in the Nigerian economy will suffer setbacks as no serious foreign investor will be willing to do business in a country where a high level of industrial dispute reigns supreme. Nigeria will therefore be seen as a country where the organised labour is always at loggerheads with employers over wages and conditions of service. The implications of the withdrawal of foreign investment are not only frightening but may appear as another indication of a nose-diving economy.²