A case study of MTN vs NLC

An official of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Oyo State Chapter, locking the MTN office gate at Ring Road during the picketing of the office in Ibadan.

Nigerian labour unions have always confounded me. As a teenager, it struck me as weird that the Academic Staff Union of Universities, which both my parents belonged to, could go on strike for months and demand to be paid notwithstanding, ostensibly because research does not stop during strikes.
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As a lawyer, in my early years of legal practice, I worked with the firm’s aviation practice partner on a dispute between an airline and NUATE, the Nigerian Union of Air Transport Employees. We frequently had meetings with the NUATE executive committee, apparently comprising full time aviation sector employees who also seemed to carry out union business full time. They deployed violence to press home their demands, not unlike their umbrella body, the Nigeria Labour Congress in its recent face-off with a multinational mobile network operator.

It is curious that multinationals always seem to be first in the firing line of these unions. On this occasion, the purported reason for the targeted action is that the operator in question ‘treats its workers like slaves,’ ‘disregards trade union rights’ and ‘the casualisation of workers is unacceptable.’ According to the NLC, the mobile network operator ‘must obey the laws of the land.’ It goes without saying that they must but what labour laws exactly do the unions rely on when they make these allegations?
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Most companies resort to temporary or outsourced staff for functions that are not central to their business (e.g. customer service or short term projects) and it is in fact a popular cost-saving measure adopted globally. Chances are that everyone who knows people working in the US or Europe knows about “contracting” and how widespread it is. Anyone who follows business trends will also be aware of outsourcing and the vistas it has opened for companies who provide ancillary business or support services.

Various reports of the “picketing” that took place in Lagos suggest that the premises were forcibly sealed and some property vandalised. None of the reports include a statement of any sort from the staff of the company, who a simple online search will reveal have a thriving staff association, indicative of a truncated yearning to join to the NLC.