AUCHI - Trade union in the country have been enjoined to see themselves as instrucments towards promoting industrial peace and harmony as well as boosting employees morale for increased productivity.

In a paper delived at a one-day orientation seminar for newly employed staff of Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi, Deputy Rector (Administration) of the institution, Mr. Femi Balogun said achieving industrial peace through constant and regular education of workers in that regard was on investment no employer of labour could ignore.

Mr. Balogun explained that Registered unions are expected to be beneficial to employers, government and the public by way of helping to reconcile conflicting interests in industry as well as democratization and humanization of the workplace but lamented that trade unions in Nigeria could not boldly claim to have satisfied this requirement. He however observed that union leaders in Nigeria faced very grim circumstances as they were either clamped into jail or the unions proscribed adding that the country had proved to be an infertile soil for the growth and flourishing of trade unionism since independence.

Balogun however explained that trade union were not informal or ad hoc pressure groups but duly constituted to harmonize people with similar concerns and convictions using variety of refined and lawful strategies to bring pressure to bear on decision making bodies.

He stressed the need for trade unions in the new millennium to see industrial conflict and disputes in the positive light, though according to him were not inevitable as they were also sometimes desirable amongst others, to effect necessary change generate ideas; reveal and exercise fears and test group cohesion.