Department of History and Strategic Studies

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Browsing Department of History and Strategic Studies by Author "Chidi, O.C."

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    The Nigerian Labour Movement in Historical Perspective: Triumphs & Travails from 1900 to 2017
    (University of Lagos Press and Bookshop Limited, 2019-12) Chidi, O.C.; Onyekpe, J.G.N.
    The objective of this paper is to examine the achievements and challenges of the Nigerian labour movement from 1900 to 2017. The study is anchored on three theories, Karl Marx's revolutionary theory, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's theory and Bakke Wight's social exchange theory. The historical research method/approach was adopted with the use of secondary data. The authors examined the British labour movement in view of the influence it has on the Nigerian labour movement, Nigeria being a former British colony. The emergence of the labour movement in Nigeria has witnessed a chequered history. As revealed in the study, despite arrests and jail sentences of union leaders, inter-union rivalries and factions, and the sometimes hostile regulatory decrees of the early military administrations, trade unions have won recognition as a vital part of the nation's socio-economic structure. The Nigerian labour movement continues to: champion the need for social protection of workers, make inputs in labour policies, fight against unfair dismissals, advocate and participate in the review of minimum wages, as well as pension reforms, resist unfair labour and economic policies of successive governments in Nigeria, protest against hikes in the prices of petroleum products and represent the voice of Nigerian workers at the national level and on the international scene such as the International