Members of the National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN) as well as the Chemical and Non-metallic Product Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (CANMPSSAN) have been commended for what is said to be ‘their respective exceptional commitment’ to workers’ education, collective bargaining, and industrial harmony.
This is against the backdrop of the wave of perennial strikes in some sectors of the economy.
Comrade Issa Aremu, the Director General of the Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS) in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, gave the commendation recently at the 2023 Education Conferences of the two unions held in Ilorin and Kaduna respectively.
Speaking in Kaduna at the 35th Annual Joint National Education Conference organized by the National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN) in collaboration with the Nigerian Textile Garment and Tailoring Employers’ Association (NTGTEA), Comrade Aremu observed that “the growth of textile union in a depressed textile sub-sector indicates that continuous members’ education is the critical success factor for effective trade unionism and workplace harmony”.
He said the sustainable welfare of workers depends on active collective bargaining and social dialogue process in the world of work, which in turn, is premised on the training and retraining of union organizers and rank and file alike.
Aremu, who was the immediate past general secretary of the union, commended the leadership of Textile Employers’ Association and workers’ union for sustaining the collaboration in areas of education and collective bargaining in the past five decades.
“If you think workers’ education is expensive, come to textile union to see that the real benefits of industrial harmony more than compensates for the nominal costs of annual workers’ educational conferences,” he pointed out.
He recalled what he termed the ‘near tragedy of 1993’ when on account of simple knowledge gap of the difference between a proposal and a collective agreement, some textile workers were misled to violently revolt against their union after which they apologized and rebuilt the union.
With 35th uninterrupted edition of annual education conference, Comrade Aremu said the textile union has shown that education is the tool to build a stable trade union movement.
He disclosed that the union was deserving of ‘MINILS anniversary institutional fellowship’ for promoting decent work through seamless educational service delivery.
Over 260 participants drawn from textile, fashion design and tailoring companies attended the Kaduna Conference, a record number, which the DG hailed as a critical benchmark for the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) to emulate.
In a similar vein, while addressing the 3rd Quadrennial National Delegates Conference of Chemical and Non-metallic Senior Staff Association (CANMPSSAN) in Ilorin, the director-general called on other unions to emulate the union’s approach of dispute resolution through social dialogue. He added that it was “a mark of strength rather than weakness to resolve problems, in the world of work, on the table rather than go to the avoidable trenches”.
Earlier, the National President of Textile Union Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN), Comrade John Adaji, had singled out the past General Secretaries of the Union, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Comrade Issa Aremu, for commendation for laying the foundation for workers’ education.
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