HAPPY WORKERS’ DAY! YUSUF RUFA’Is THOUGHT ON THE DAY IN FOCUS

Today, Workers, employed or self-employed are remembered all over the world; whether you are a worker in the office, factory, field, home, in the sea, in the church etc. Today I join in remembering my colleagues all over the world and I say remain as constant as the sun, as twinkling as the star and as illuminating and bright as the full moon. To those truthful and loyal to their call or vocation or profession, there is grace, joy, pride and triumph in what you do. God is watching and humanity is experiencing it. At the end the ultimate arbiter and dispenser will give the prize that is deemed fit. I leave you with a green old piece titled: “REFLECTIONS: WAGE” written by Kelly Elisha, one of my senior and respected Editor and Journalist I worked with some years ago in Africa Independent Television (AIT).

Reflections: Wage                                                    by Kelly Elisha

Tuesday this week, the labour community remembered with nostalgia an incident which happened far back in 1809 in Chicago. That day provided an opportunity for workers to analyze themselves and to reflect on their living condition. The fact is that labour is not only cheap here, it is exploited.

Imagine a God created human being who resumes on his duty post at 8’o clock in the morning and signs off twelve hours later and he does that seven days a week, only to go home at the end of the month with            N5, 000. What can be cheaper than this? Samuel Johnson once said that “Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labour of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.”                                                   

I agree.  But what is it that we throw at our labour as wages? Pittance: Just the little that puts that worker perpetually at the subsistence level. Labour is cheap. In other words, those who hire labour for pittance are callous. If indeed they are callous, what will one call those who withhold the pittance? Some persons give them the name true capitalists.

When I read Henry George I thought he was being emotional, but on reflection I think he was being realistic. Let me quote him:‘‘it is but a truism that labour is most productive where its wages are largest. Poorly paid labour is inefficient labour.’’ It is difficult to subtract from this truth and if somebody cares to admit it, poorly rewarded labour impacts poorly on the products. I like this saying of our contemporary elders that, “from whom much is expected, much is given.” This has a semblance to what farmers believe in. If you throw a small sized yam to the ground, you reap a piece of pebble.             

After reflecting on this issue, I could not resist the temptation of borrowing Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s opinion. Let me say it the way he puts it. “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.” I underlined in my mind the words “less than living wages.” This description is nothing other than the wages paid to hired slaves because slaves were never conferred with the right to life. Their living was at the whims of the slave master.                    God Himself did not forget to warn that the labourer is worthy of his wages.

God agrees with Roosevelt that a business which holds back the wages or opts to pay a price offered in a cheap market does not deserve to exist. I am in a reflective mood. I do hope labour hirers are listening to me. Think about it.