The recession and workers' struggles in the vehicle assembly plants: Steyr — Nigeria

Abstract

Retrenchment In Nigerian vehicle assembly plants in consequence of economic recession has provoked an active response from the workforce. At Steyr‐Nigeria in Bauchi, workers walked out in October 1985 in protest at the management's intransigence in negotiations with union officials. Bangura charts their initial success and provides a lucid account of the reasons for their ultimate failure. His analysis of the Steyr‐Nigeria dispute is explicitly situated within the broader context of policy and economic performance in the Nigerian economy as a whole. He considers the extent to which workers emerged as victims of policy essentially motivated by the interests of quick profits and production of luxury consumer goods for an emergent bourgeoisie. The irrationality of such policy as a means of enhancing Nigeria's development, or even of catering to a market which might reasonably be expected to emerge, is detailed by the author. Bangura focuses on a single case, but his concern is not with the factors making for immediate industrial victory. It is rather with a broader strategy extending beyond the preservation of workers' jobs in any given industrial unit to the interests of the class as a whole. What is called for, he argues, is a policy which matches needs of the entire population with available resources and which gives priority to a society's disadvantaged members.