Solidarity and fragmentation between trade unions and civil societies during fuel subsidy mass-protest in Nigeria : a study of social movement unionism.

• Main Author: Abdulra'uf, Muttaqa Yusha'u
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Social movement unionism; Trade unions; LASCO; Counter-movement; Solidarity; Fragmentation
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10539/13188

This study examines solidarity and fragmentations between trade unions and civil society organisations under the Labour and Civil Society Coalition LASCO, during the fuel subsidy mass-protest in Nigeria. To understand the basis of LASCO’s mobilisation during the strike/ mass-protest and the tension that follows the suspension of the strike within the alliance, the study utilises the literature on Social Movement Unionism especially in South Africa, with emphasise on trade unions community and political alliances. The classical SMU literature especially applied in South Africa and Brazil revealed that authoritarian industrialisation and repressive Apartheid work-place regime prompted unions to use innovative strategies of using their bargaining power to challenge the state, by rendering themselves ungovernable both in the work-place and in the society through linkages with communities. This study, relying on a case study method and participant observation of the strike and mass-protest in Kano, revealed that SMU mobilisation in Nigeria was triggered by predatory and weak state, whose rent seeking permeates the administration of subsidy in the oil industry. Secondly, the study argued that the tensions and divisions within LASCO alliance following the suspension of the perceived unilateral suspension of the strike by the Trade Unions explains the political and class orientation of both trade unions and civil society organisations. The study argues that Trade Unions behaviour in the context of the strike lean towards Hyman pessimist view of trade unions or what Beiler et’al called accommodatory strategy, a view that see unions as negotiators of order both in the work-place and in the larger society. On the other hand the civil society organisations typified multi-level organisations with different orientations that always seek for transformation of the social order or what Beiler et’al called transformatory strategy.