Abstract

This paper examined the relationship between the frequent use of Wage Commissions by government to determine wages of employees and wage-related industrial unrest in the public service in Nigeria. In Nigeria government plays dual in the Industrial Relations System; it is the only employer of labour in the public sector and also makes rules that regulate the Industrial Relations System. Government therefore takes undue advantage of this peculiar circumstance and interferes unnecessarily with the workings of the Industrial Relations System. One of the major avenues through which this interference is achieved is the frequent use of Wage Commissions to determine wages of workers in the public service instead of the collective bargaining machinery. This situation frequently leads to industrial unrest because workers are not usually represented in these commissions and as a result their interests are hardly protected. This explains why the recommendations of the commissions are often greeted with widespread protests and agitations that most times degenerate to industrial unrest. This paper contends that government resorts to the use Wage Commissions to determine wages of employees in the public service simply because it does not want to negotiate with workers. Workers through their unions would ordinarily want to get their entitlements from government and that is exactly what government tries to avoid and therefore prefers the use of Wage Commissions where workers are not represented and they always respond to this situation through industrial unrest. This paper therefore recommends the frequent use of collective bargaining as the best method of determining wages of employees as well as settling other conditions of employment because it offers all the parties the opportunity to freely express themselves by putting their demands on the table and gray areas are amicably resolved between the parties.