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Socialist Democracy September - October 2003

 

Olowogboyega�s Reinstatement:

A VICTORY FOR OSUN WORKERS

By Demola Yaya

The eventual recall of Dr. Oyebade Olowogboyega, the immediate past president of Osun State chapter of National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), who was unjustly dismissed by the former Alliance For Democracy (AD) government in the state in 2001 by new state governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola of the PDP is a victory for the working people. Apart from Olowogboyega, about 600 workers were also reported to have been reinstated by the new governor.

Olowogboyega was unjustly sacked for his leading role in the struggle for the implementation of the N6,500 minimum wage agreed to by the government and NLC leadership in 1999. Apart from Olowogboyega who was the arrowhead, about 11,000 public servants, including teachers, were sacked by the then AD government on the usual excuse that the state government could not afford the payment of the new wage.

In addition to those who have been reinstated, the new governor has set up a panel to review the cases of other affected workers with a view to recalling them.

The workers should be saluted for their heroic struggles and perseverance which is what has compelled the new government to re-examine the case.

The workers and their leadership should not however be carried away by the 'magnanimity' of the current government in reinstating their colleagues and leaders. There is a need for caution and vigilance by the workers� leaders in managing the present victory vis-�-vis their relations with the ruling PDP government. Already, Mr. Peter Ade-Ajayi, the state NLC chairman, has been appointed as a special adviser to the governor. This is clearly part of a strategy by the new government in the state to buy off the trade unions.

Workers� leaders should note that notwithstanding its initial good relations with them, put under the same circumstance and condition, the present government would likely act the same way its predecessor did. Instead of dissolving themselves into the bourgeois PDP government in the state or giving political support to it, what should pre-occupy the attention of the workers especially their leaders is how to fight for their members� interests as well as build an alternative working class political platform to the present bourgeois PDP government which can take away, within a tinkle of an eye, all the present victories if confronted with workers legitimate demands in the near future.

With the PDP�s neo-liberal policies of privatisation and commercialisation of every sector of the economy, it is just a matter of time before Oyinlola government in the state starts to attack all the gains and victories won by the workers. Only through a workers and poor peasants� government, with the commanding sectors of the economy nationalised under the democratic control and management of the workers themselves can permanent decent living and working conditions be guaranteed and an end be put to victimisation of labour activists.

 

 

Socialist Democracy September - October 2003