1.0 INTRODUCTION

The level of disputes has become a thing of concern in most of the industries in Nigeria; the ongoing problem is not only affecting Nigeria but also other developing countries in Africa and the world at large.

The manufacturing industries in Nigeria over the years have had labour disputes coming from industrial conflicts mainly due to lack of proper negotiation and inconsistency in laid down procedures.

The manufacturing industry being the highest of contributor of the Nigeria economy see to it that there is need of reform from the ministry of labour Nigeria. The effect of industrial conflict is seen mostly in the level of striking of labour force Nigeria. It is noticed that one of the major contributors of the economic growth and development in Nigeria is worker’s satisfaction; where there is consistence practice of worker satisfaction, the great workout; Nigeria is her current state needs an efficient and effectively sound industrial relations system. An industrial system is said to be sound when there is a significant positive relationship between the management and its employees.

The paper took  Rantito dairies limited as a case study; Rantito dairies limited is one of the leading manufacturing companies in Nigeria; some of the products of Rantito dairies limited include yughurt and water. Rantito dairies limited supplies most of the African countries including Nigeria, South Africa and Nigeria. This company has grown to this extent due to proper negotiation among workers and good industrial conflict management system through their industrial relations.

1.1 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Labour dispute on industry is on the increase, employment generation and sustainability of jobs and the economy of Nigeria have being questioned. The major cause of dispute in most of the manufacturing companies in Nigeria is due to lack of proper conflict management system and poor relationship between employees and the industrial relations. The manufacturing companies being the pivot behind the success of the economy of Nigeria needs consistency; the issues of disputes among most of the manufacturing companies need to be looked into.

1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The specific objectives of the paper are to:

1. Investigate why some workers fail to observe laid-down procedures for dispute resolution and instead resort to industrial actions.

2. Establish whether workers consider "strike as a tool" more effective than having a "conversation;" and what accounts for this.

3. Investigate any other reason(s) behind the difficulty in change of attitude.

4. Identify the effect of labour disputes on industry, employment generation and sustainability of job and the economy as a whole.

1.2 REASON FOR RESORT TO INDUSTRIAL ACTIONS INSTEAD OF LAID DOWN PROCEDURE

The inclusion in the Act of the requirement of prior notice of industrial action in 1995 did not simply occur out of the blue, for there were developments which led to the inclusion of this requirement in the Act. The seed for the inclusion of this requirement in a statute was planted by the Industrial Court when it held in certain judgments in 1987 and 1988 that employees who had gone on strike without giving any warning or notice to their employer had acted unfairly towards their employer. These were cases where employees, who had been dismissed for striking, brought unfair labour practice claims against their employers under the Labour Relations Act 28 of 1956 (“the old Act”). After the pronouncements in those cases in 1987 and 1988, the Industrial Court, the old Labour Appeal Court (created under the old Act) (“the old Labour Appeal Court”), the then Supreme Court and the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court followed up with other judgments in the late 1980s right into the mid-1990s. In all these cases the courts consistently held the resort by workers to industrial action without prior notice to their employers to be unfair. These cases demonstrate that the Industrial Court played a very important role in the development of this procedural requirement for protected industrial action in South Africa. Of course, as indicated above, the old Labour Appeal Court and the Appellate Division gave their approval to the approach initiated by the Industrial Court. It is necessary to discuss at least some of these cases in order to show how the idea of prior notice of industrial action originated and developed and was ultimately included in the new statutory dispute-resolution dispensation for labour disputes in post-apartheid South Africa.

1.3 REASON FOR STRIKE

In reviewing the complaint the NLC panel observed that the report relied on the principle of equal pay for equal work, a persuasive argument which although reasonable, was not legally binding for enforcement by any adjudicating body like the NLC, since it had not been made part of the laws of Nigeria, in accordance with Article 75 of the 1992 Constitution.

The panel directed the consultant to list for future use and to be embodied in the report the 'additional soft factors' that were not part of the job evaluation weighting scheme but had been weighted in favour of medical officers, placing them outside the 1-9 band identification and thereby undermining the report in the eyes of the Health Workers' Group. It said although parties acknowledged the relevance of such premium in the health sector, the view of the workers' groups was that the resultant gap generated between the salaries of the doctors and the other groups by the use of the 'additional soft factors' was unacceptable. The NLC panel also decided that the workers' groups were right in pointing out that medical officers who were put in the same band with other professionals should have received almost equal pay, bearing in mind the job evaluation scores of the consultant. It also recommended to the government to constitute an independent negotiating committee in future negotiations to avert protracted industrial dispute resulting from the mistrust of the Negotiation Committee by other clinical and health staff.(Graphic posted on Nigeria web 21st April 2006 At the time of writing this paper the government has called for a meeting to resolve the issues. (Myjoyonline 9th June 2006). In a very ominous sign, the Civil Servants' Association of Nigeria(CSA) have called on the Government to employ fairness and equity when dealing with salaries of public servants. It said the Government had tended to listen more to some categories of health workers to the detriment of other health workers and the general public sector workers.

They argue that there was already dissatisfaction in the entire public service especially among Civil Servants about the inequities in the salary administration adding that this had only been "temporarily put on ice" and cited the entry point of a graduate in the Nigeria Education Service was level 14 while level nine was the entry point in the Civil Service. The CSA also point out that to single out health workers for special treatment was to worsen the already volatile situation. In said it was "watching these developments with eagle eye" and would 'act appropriately' if it felt cheated by their common employer.(Myjoyonline 10th June 2006).