The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Joe Ajaero, has called for a tax on the profits of technology giants and automated industries to fund large-scale retraining and upskilling programmes for workers at risk of losing their jobs due to artificial intelligence (AI).
Ajaero made the call on Friday at the 2025 Conference of the Labour Writers Association of Nigeria (LAWAN), held at the Golden Tulip Hotel, Ibadan, with the theme “The Future of Work in the Era of Artificial Intelligence.”
He warned that while AI is often portrayed as a symbol of progress and efficiency, it is increasingly being used by corporations to deepen worker exploitation, erode labour rights, and widen inequality.
“We must bargain for comprehensive retraining and upskilling programmes, funded by a tax on the excessive profits of tech giants and automated industries,” Ajaero said. “Our struggle is to socialise the benefits of AI and robotise the burdens, ensuring it leads to a society with more leisure, greater security, and shared prosperity for the working class.”
Describing AI as “the modern face of the class struggle,”the NLC president said workers risk being pushed into deeper precarity as companies pursue profit through de-skilling, casualisation, and job automation.
“They sell us a narrative of efficiency and progress, but we must see it for what it truly is: a tool for maximising profit by de-skilling jobs, casualising labour, and ultimately weakening the collective power of the working people,” he said.
Ajaero cautioned that without safeguards, AI could reshape labour relations in ways that undermine collective bargaining and unionisation, creating a “digitally dispossessed underclass.”
He urged trade unions and policymakers to press for stronger labour protections, including a Right to Disconnect, limits on algorithmic surveillance, and fair sharing of productivity gains through shorter workweeks without loss of pay.
The labour leader also described labour writers as key partners in the struggle for workers’ rights.
“Your typewriters, recorders, and keyboards are no less important than our placards and negotiation tables,” he said. “They are the instruments with which we counter propaganda and awaken the consciousness of the masses.”
Ajaero further cited ongoing disputes at the Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Complex, accusing the company of violating Nigeria’s Labour Act and international conventions by preventing workers from joining unions.
“The reckless attempts at de-unionisation of workers at Dangote Refinery bear testimony to the unrelenting and pervasive power of corrosive capitalism,” he said.
He criticised the use of the media to deflect blame from employers and urged solidarity across the labour movement.
“There is no room for neutrality in the face of this attempt to subjugate us,” he said. “They have their AI, but we have our WE. Our collective power — our solidarity — is the ultimate intelligence no machine can replicate.”
