In a stark assessment of the state of labour across Africa and the Arab world, former Public Service International (PSI) Vice President, Peters Adeyemi, has declared that workers are bearing the devastating cost of failed democratic systems and externally imposed economic models.
Wars and Economic Policies Crush Workers' Welfare
Adeyemi, who served as the immediate past Vice President for Africa and the Arab World at the global union federation PSI, highlighted a dual crisis. In the Arab region, the conflict between Israel and Hamas has caused immense human suffering, displacing families and destroying public services. The PSI steering committee in Geneva recently passed an emergency resolution calling for urgent intervention to end the crisis.
In Africa, he identified the crisis as primarily economic but equally destructive. Workers face a brutal combination of declining real wages, soaring inflation, currency instability, and shrinking social protection. Adeyemi squarely blamed African leadership for this predicament, accusing them of blindly implementing economic ideologies from Bretton Woods institutions like the IMF and World Bank.
Leadership Failure and the Limits of Labour Power
"With a few exceptions, African leaders have chosen to implement these economic ideologies almost wholesale," Adeyemi stated. He argued that policies promoting austerity, currency devaluation, and market liberalisation are executed without adaptation to local realities, directly harming workers and the poor.
Using Nigeria as a case study, he questioned the purchasing power of the minimum wage, asking what it can genuinely buy for a worker today. Responding to claims that labour leaders have become helpless, he rejected the notion but acknowledged the limits of union power. "You cannot compare a trade union with a government," he cautioned, while pointing to concrete achievements like the N70,000 minimum wage in Nigeria as a result of sustained agitation.
He also condemned the political labelling of union actions, noting that in Nigeria, industrial action is often dismissed as opposition-sponsored to delegitimise workers' demands.
Opposition to Flawed PPPs and the Call for Internal Reform
Adeyemi defended labour's scepticism towards Public-Private Partnership (PPP) models, clarifying that unions are not anti-development but opposed to corruption and lack of transparency. "When government officials collect tolls and steal the money, what do you expect workers to do? Clap for them?" he questioned, arguing that labour cannot endorse systems that enrich a few while workers pay more for poor services.
Looking inward, Adeyemi admitted that the golden era of the Nigerian labour movement, led by figures like Hassan Sunmonu and Adams Oshiomhole, appears to be over. He attributed this decline to political infiltration of union elections, where leadership is based on loyalty rather than competence and integrity. "When affiliate leaders prefer personal comfort over struggle, you cannot produce a militant or visionary movement," he lamented, emphasising that leadership requires courage and sacrifice, not "eye service."
For the future, he urged labour centres to invest heavily in research and data to effectively counter government narratives. He called for a struggle for economic emancipation and leadership change, both in government and within the labour movement itself, to restore dignity and decent work for all.
