Abstract
Generally speaking, employees in all kinds of work organizations (private or public) exchange work for rewards, which take many forms (that is, material and non-material rewards). However, one of the most important of such rewards and invariably the most obvious is the money paid to workers either as salaries, wages or monitored fringe benefits. The importance of this group of reward lies in the fact that it constitutes the regime of benefit which impacts most greatly on the employees’ motivation to work and on their propensity to cooperate with the management thereby creating a stable industrial relations environment. Its management thus becomes an important issue in all manners of industrial relations system. In Nigeria, the administration of industrial compensation is always associated with a number of industrial relations related problems, the most important which are income inequality and industrial conflicts in form of labor strikes. This paper suggests some ways forward which include: the adoption of job-evaluation system in the fixing of salaries and wages; adoption of the principles of Human Resource Management (HRM) in the management of workers; and introduction of welfare schemes for workers to reduce income inequality. Key words: Material and non-material rewards, wages.
Highlights
There is a widespread interest in the role of money as a motivational tool for spurring people for higher productivity and for securing their allegiance to cooperate with the organizations in which they are members
From the foregoing, it can be seen that practically, every major demand on the part of workers for wage increase or review before and after independence in Nigeria has been settled not through collective industrial machinery, but by special commissions or tribunals. These tribunals might have helped to raise wages in Nigeria they have not addressed the problem of income inequality in the Nigeria industrial relations system, which remains a major source of industrial instability
Most industrial agitations as we have shown earlier always have at their center, wage related issues and which in most cases have culminated into serious industrial crisis and further dissatisfaction among the Nigerian workers
Summary
Workers – government wage relations and the unresolved issue of income inequality and labor strikes in Nigeria: Suggestion for the way forward. One of the most important of such rewards and invariably the most obvious is the money paid to workers either as salaries, wages or monitored fringe benefits. The importance of this group of reward lies in the fact that it constitutes the regime of benefit which impacts most greatly on the employees’ motivation to work and on their propensity to cooperate with the management thereby creating a stable industrial relations environment.
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