Perspectives on the Determination of National Labour and Industrial Relations Policies: An Exploration of the Nigerian Experience

This paper explored perspectives for the determination of national Industrial Relations policies used by countries in managing labor-management relations. With the aid of a historical/ analytical approach, the paper highlighted two major perspectives (voluntarism and interventionism) as labor or industrial Relations policy options put in place in countries with increasing Union density for the minimization of industrial Relations adversarialism and promotion of industrial harmony at workplaces. The paper also highlighted the variants of voluntaristic labor policies (including management dominated and joint determination oriented labor policies). Further highlighted are the interventionist Industrial Relations policies with its variants (including the various forms through which the State intervenes in the determination of the ways in which the principal actors in Industrial Relations are to function). The paper concluded that perspectives on the determination of national labor and Industrial Relations policies evolved during the unregulated interplay between the demand and supply of labor which led to increasing immiseration of the working class and the clamor for regulatory mechanisms to balance the power of the principal actors in Industrial Relations. The Nigerian labor policy experience was explored and a justification put forward by the Nigerian State for the model adopted is discussed.