COVID-19 AND THE CHANGING FACE OF WORK/INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Industries are usually places of production and of manufacturing. They are places were good are produced and services rendered. These are made possible by the presence of and /or interaction of persons referred to as actors or participants. In industries therefore, there are two key actors; the employee and the employer having the State as an umpire. These actors in the course of material production engage in interaction. It is this work relation/interaction in conjuncture with the environment that translates into tangential goods and services for societal consumption. In Nigeria, the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic saw the alteration of the existing work relations in the country whereby the work relations assumed a new form and nature. It ushered in a spatial as against a physical work space, personalized as against collectivized (group) work process, authoritarian as against democratized work relations etc. The altered work relations off-course has implications on work relations in the industries (workers/management) as well as the country in general. The attendant implications include, job rationalization, spiritless trade unionism, labour exploitation, income/revenue reduction/decline etc. From a sociological perspective and in the attempt to situate the study within a given theoretical perspective the paper adopted the theoretical biasness of the Marxian conflict theory in the exposition of the study problem. The paper therefore suggests that there should be legislation by government regulating work relations in the country in terms of slashing of salary and arbitrary laying-off of workers in the name of right-sizing.