Effect of Global Economy on Industrial Relations in Nigeria

The crisis that started in the United States in late 2008 has since become a major concern for political leaders, economists, and managers of financial institutions around the globe as its impact has gone beyond the borders of the United States. Analysts have noted its numerous causes, including excessive corrupt practices, particularly the ‘Sub-prime mortgage lending' that led to high mortgage default and delinquency rates in the United States, the "hands-off approach to regulation" of George W. Bush (or greed and unregulated capitalism), massive funding of the "war on terrorism," and erroneous belief that "free market" principle is perfect, fair and efficient (The New York Times, Nov 20, 2008).

The global crisis has slowed down economic activities around the world as it has affected productivity, business operations and investments by way of reducing domestic and international demand for goods and services. It has pushed up unemployment as many industries and organizations are shedding off workers. This is evidenced in the recent massive downsizing in the Nigerian Banking sector. It also affected the global oil prices and indeed the Nigerian Downstream petroleum sector. Organisations like Chevron, Shell, Mobil which have hitherto be at the forefront of best industrial relations practices in Nigeria could no longer sustain this tempo. It is a fact that the Nigerian oil industry is in constant jeopardy and fear of operations disruptions. As a matter of fact, 90% of the stoppages and crises in the Nigeria oil industry is as a result of the degenerating employee and industrial relations leading to strikes, work to rule and other industrial actions as we constantly witness today, and not to the Niger-Delta situation

Employee participation in management of an enterprise started with recognition of the importance of human resource in the achievement of organization's objective. In the global economy, effective human resources participation in management enables enterprises to achieve its objective. The degree or the extent of human resources participation is determined by the level of economic development and co-operation between management and worker. Management in most dynamic organization are now recognizing that organization's success relates to the degree of human resources performance and their efforts in achieving enterprise objectives. Walker (1974) sees employee participation as the involvement of workers in managerial function of an enterprise. Employees are allowed to take part in decision-making and control which has been exclusively reserved for top manager. Employees are also allowed to take part in managerial functions such as planning, controlling, organizing, budgeting and directing. This is to motivate them and to synchronize management decision with their interest and aspiration, so that they will have no option than to improve their productivity. Employee financial participation