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Labour as sacrificial lamb

Labour as sacrificial lamb

By Bayo Fasun won

In every capitalist economy, the entrepreneur provides services for profit. According to Karl Marx, after the investor has extracted the due profit from the endeavours of land, capital and especially Labour, there is an excess profit that ought to have been shared to the goose that laid the golden eggs, labour. However, the greediness and inhuman disposition of the entrepreneur makes him to appropriate the surplus value, thereby enlarging the gap between the rich and the poor.

As predicted by the Marxist, a time would come when the poor would have nothing to eat, involve in a gruesome class struggle and feed on the rich, and establish an egalitarian society. Capitalist nations have however found means of preventing the revolution by internationalizing labour, provision of social security and welfare packages for their workers and even non workers to cushion the effects of poverty and high rise in living wages. Despite these, globally, the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’, is still wide.

Many nations of the world had set long-term goals in the precious years, and had intended that the year 2020 would be the golden year of change for their economy. In fact, Nigeria had developed a robust year 20:2020 vision several years back, with the assurance that this year would bring smiles and liberation to many Nigerians. But no thanks to COVID-19, the year of hope has become the year of gloom and doom. Most nations of the world are groaning under the economic burdens heralded by the pandemic. In the United States of America, unemployment rate has risen to more than 14%; more than 20 million jobs are threatened and mortality rate has increased tremendously. For Nigeria, as in most rental and primary products producing states, the situation is more worrisome. The crude oil price had slumped, demands have fallen and therefore externally generated revenues have taken a nosedive. In addition to these, the internally generated revenue has been grossly affected by the lockdown. Workers are under ‘house arrest’, small scale businesses are on recess and even the beggars have no access to capital. The implication is that the nation is going under, economic wise. The gruesome prediction is that by June, Nigeria may go into recession.

For the avoidance of doubts, Nigeria is neither a capitalist nor a Welfare State. The system of privatisation in Nigeria is that which revolve and redistribute capital rather than producing capital. The manufacturing sector is not well developed as the commercial sector that is more involved in buying and selling. Government is also not proactive in creating an enabling environment that promotes the development of a capitalist economy. The social investment programme of the Federal Government is shrouded in mystery.

Many Nigerians are therefore left to cater for themselves from the crumbs that fall from the table of those who have little to eat. With the high rate of growing unemployment, limited payment of pensions to retirees and high interest rate on loan, many Nigerians have had to depend on public servants’ salaries in order to survive in our peculiar economy. Government workers have therefore become the beacon of hope for the various hangers-on in the society.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Nigeria workers, the financier of the informal sector, had been subjected to tough times. The quest for a better wage which culminated into the new minimum wage did not produce the expected changes in living conditions. Even at implementation, the ‘consequential adjustments’ in salaries had left bitter taste in the mouths of the workers. With the non living wage came inflation that silenced the joy of the salary earners. Government should not punish workers for the low internally generated revenues, and the tax evasion by the entrepreneurs of the private sector. For the misdemeanor of the private sector, the public servants have become the whipped horse. Now that COVID-19 has affected the income of the nation, governments should not turn once again to whip the willing horse to death. Within the ambits of shallow thinking, governments always think of dealing with workers in order to get out of economic crunch. Consciously, some governments have been insinuating that workers may be retired, retrenched and asked to take less pay as a sacrifice for the revamping of the nation’s ‘comatose’ economy. Very soon, the era of owing salaries, or half payments of salaries may emerge as a panacea to lack of foresight, corruption and ill performing economic ideologies.

Earlier and elsewhere, yours truly had submitted that government workers at all levels are in practice subjected to thirty five years of imprisonment parole according to the rules guiding their operations. Many who had advanced in age before being ‘sentenced’ to a life of servitude have the opportunity of serving their term at fewer years. Like prisoners, the life of the public workers are regimented, working their fingers to the bones, and expecting a regimented pay irrespective of the economic changes in the political system. The regimented pay suggests that there is a level their income cannot pass, irrespective of their dedication and sacrifice to duty.

Aside those, government workers, are the hewers of wood and the fetchers of water, and producers of the commonwealth of the nation. Governments at all levels must respect the sacrifices and realize that Labour are the geese that lay the golden eggs, and as such should not be denied their salaries in full and as at when due even in this period.

The main argument of my discourse is that workers should be saved from the agonies of the past years, as the economy would soon bounce back. The several hundred sacked by profit seeking and self centered private organisations would have to rely on government workers to survive the famine ahead. A sensitive and appreciative government cut costs on over bloated contract awards, and frivolous spending to ensure that workers get their salaries as at when due and in full. Anything other than this would spell doom for the informal sector and exacerbate the poverty and corruption index for the nation. The repercussion would be worse than imagined.

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