May Day 2026: Workers and Trade Unionists Must Struggle for the Building of a Fighting and Democratically Run Trade Union Movement

Reject Anti-Poor Capitalist Policies and Support the Building of a Mass Working People’s Political Alternative

The Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) felicitates with Nigerian workers as we mark this year’s International Workers’ Day. This occasion should not be used just for jollification and merrymaking but, more importantly, for sober reflection on how the aspiration and yearnings of the vast majority for decent quality of life have fared at least since the last May Day. The sober background of wars in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere along with the growing threat of a world economic crisis shows the need for a fundamental change.

In Nigeria no doubt, the government of Bola Tinubu has been a monumental disaster for the vast majority of the working people in terms of living standards and, increasingly, the security of lives and property. Indeed, that there are working people and the poor who have managed to survive the blistering onslaught from the Tinubu government calls for celebration. Unfortunately, the labour leaders have not seriously challenged the anti-poor policies of the government at all levels which account for the mass suffering and economic hardship.

So, we need to reflect on how to get a government which runs economy and formulates policies in the interest of the vast majority, not for the egregious greed and profit-first interest of a few robber-capitalist elite. Also importantly, we should be interested in how we build or have trade unions (NLC and TUC and their affiliates) which are run truly democratically and whose leaders consistently and uncompromisingly fight for the interest of workers and the oppressed in general, not leaders who use union positions to become aristocrats at the expense of workers. Having such reflections is the real essence of May Day which originated from the struggle of the US workers for an eight-hour workday in 1886. In other words, May Day was founded on struggle for improved welfare and better working conditions for workers and became an international movement. These traditions must be revived and sustained.

IRAN WAR

As we all know, this year May Day is taking place at a period the excruciating cost of living crisis, triggered by the neo-liberal capitalist attacks unleashed by the Tinubu government, has been further compounded by the devastating effects of the US and Israel war on Iran. Even if the war eventually ends today, the damage it has done to the world economy means that its impacts will continue to reverberate for a longer time. And, it is the working people that will continue to be disproportionately at the receiving end.

In Nigeria, the neo-liberal structure of the economy means that the war beat hard on working people. For instance, the absence of functional public refineries means a reliance on Dangote Refinery which is solely in business for super profits. As a result, we pay exorbitantly high for petroleum products, something that has fed into an already crushing inflation and thereby worsening the cost-of-living crisis.

The working people are forced to continue to pay for the global crisis as a result of the failure of the successive primitive capitalist governments in Nigeria. This is even despite the fact that Nigeria is benefitting from the Iran war, raking in high revenue as a result of the increase in crude oil prices. A sum of N30 trillion has been projected by the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) as the possible oil windfall from the war if prices remain between $95 and $105 per barrel, far above the 2026 budget benchmark of $65. Prices of petroleum products (petrol, diesel, etc.) have increased by at least 50 percent since the war started and this indicates how the people are made to suffer despite the oil windfall.

In other words, without struggles, the working people and the poor will benefit nothing from the windfall. Instead, the big capitalists and looters will profit while the ordinary people continue to suffer, paradoxically as a result of the same high crude oil prices. We must resist suffering in the midst of such a huge revenue and the country’s wealth in general. However, building such a resistance requires a fighting leadership of labour that is prepared to organize sustained struggles and not the type that is satisfied with just blowing hot air, making strong speech or putting forward a set of demands without plans to back it up with any serious action.

For instance, the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on March 15 issued a statement titled “Save Nigerians from this Shock: An Urgent Relief Has Become Necessary” in which it aptly blamed the neo-liberal agenda of the Tinubu government for the aggravation of the effects of Iran war on workers and the poor in Nigeria and correctly placed demands, albeit limited, on the government to cushion the rising cost of living. The demands include immediate wage award and cost-of-living allowance (COLA) for all workers, tax relief for workers and the informal sector, and “a clear timeline for the full operationalization of all public refineries”. As of this May Day, it is six weeks since the demands have been made and Tinubu government, as usual, has blatantly ignored them. This is apparently because, as it has become a pattern, the NLC only issued the demands without any programme of actions to force the government to accede to them.

MINIMUM WAGE

The NLC also did well with the directive that street protests, rather than indoor celebrations, should be held on this May Day in the states where the national minimum wage, which has even been eroded by inflation, has not been fully implemented. Unfortunately, in the directive, the names of the affected states were not mentioned, leaving their identity to conjecture and speculation. Besides, the criteria that satisfy the full implementation of the minimum wage were not spelt out and thereby handing the irresponsible and compromising labour leaders in the defaulting states an escape route or a hidden place. If the states had been publicly disclosed it would have been possible for activists to mobilise workers to mount pressure on the affected state labour leadership. Nonetheless, regardless of the compliance to this directive at this May Day, the NLC together with the TUC should declare another day of action including strike and mass protests in the affected states which must be openly named. It is because the rogue state governors have not confronted a serious mass struggle, which is centrally coordinated, that partly explains why they have refused to implement the minimum wage.

It is good that the National Public Service Negotiating Council (NPSNC) has proposed a minimum wage of N154,000. Given the prevailing high cost of living, the figure is even modest. But the problem is how would workers in the states which have refused to pay N70,000 minimum wage, two years after becoming a law, benefit from N154,000 minimum wage if it is won by Labour. This underscores the need for a serious struggle to win the full implementation of N70,000 minimum wage, beyond mere declaration and media razzmatazz, side by side with the demand for a new wage.  Trade union activists and workers must mount pressure on the labour leaders to wage the minimum wage struggle as we have articulated.

ANTI-CASUALISATION CAMPAIGN NEEDED

The struggle for the implementation of minimum wage must also be linked with a serious campaign to end the menace of casualization and contract staffing. Casualization, a policy wherein workers are paid poor wages, subject to slave-like conditions and denied the right to a trade union, is exploited by the employers to circumvent the implementation of laws on minimum wage, pension, entitlement and conditions of service. Sadly, some of the out-sourcing firms which recruit casual workers for companies are owned by trade union leaders. This partly accounts for why Labour has not been able to fight the scourge of casualization. Trade union activists should agitate and mount pressure within the trade unions for the resuscitation of the long-abandoned anti-casualization struggle. Given the compromising position of a number of trade union leaders, the committee to drive the campaign should also include socialists and activists outside the official trade unions.

ANTI-POOR POLICIES

It is also imperative that the most important lesson of the last minimum wage struggle must not be lost on workers and activists. It is that it is wrong to abandon the struggle over the general crisis of economy and anti-poor policies of the government like fuel price hike, devaluation of the naira, and extortionate electricity tariffs as the NLC and TUC leaderships did and focus only on winning a new minimum wage for workers. The issues they failed to confront later aggregated to spark an inflationary pressure that immediately eroded the N70,000 minimum wage right from its outset in 2024 such that it was worse in value than the previous minimum wage of N30,000 was in 2019 when it was signed into law.

The above point is also important given the fact that it is not likely for a pro-working people government to emerge from the forthcoming 2027 elections. All the major aspirants, Tinubu, Atiku, Obi, Kwankwaso, and Amaechi, advocate a similar neo-liberal capitalist programme which is inherently anti-poor and anti-worker. So, workers and trade unions as well as pro-masses organisations and left activists must be prepared to build a mass resistance against anti-poor policies and a mass working people political alternative before and especially after the 2027 elections.

FOR FIGHTING LABOUR LEADERSHIP

By and large, the most important take away from this May Day is the need to transform the character of labour leaderships at all levels and unions. It is even fitting that this is the last May Day before the election of a new leadership of the NLC.  Therefore, workers and trade union activists together with socialists and pro-labour organisations should initiate a campaign for a trade union movement that is democratic and constantly defends the interests of workers and resists capitalist anti-poor policies. Such a campaign which should bring together workers and activists from different union affiliates can become a network which meets regularly and acts as a fighting platform within the labour movement.

Ultimately, a revived labour movement with a fighting leadership could lay the basis for the building of a revolutionary mass movement that could win political power. On the basis of socialist planning the government formed by such a movement can begin to use and organize the human and material resources of the country for the benefits and needs of all, thereby removing the conditions that create insecurity in all aspects of life. A fight needs to be waged for a better future.

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If you are interested in fighting against anti-poor policies and for democratic rights, a better society and socialist change, the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) is an organization to join.

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Being the May Day 2026 Statement of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), produced as a leaflet for mass circulation at May Day rallies