Assessment of Socio-Economic Livelihood Conditions and Coping Strategies of Employees of Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, amidst Industrial Strike Action
Over the past few years, there have been series of industrial strike actions embarked by the union of employees across Nigerian tertiary institutions. Such strike actions have adverse effects on the socio-economic livelihoods of the employees, yet there have been dearth of empirical researches on the socio-economic livelihood conditions, as well as the coping strategies of the employees amidst the strike action. This study was positioned to fill these gaps in empirical research by investigating the socio-economic livelihood conditions and coping strategies of employees in federal public tertiary institutions in Nigeria, using Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Anambra State as a point of reference, amidst the 2022 industrial strike action embarked by the employees. Data were collected from 250 academic and non-academic employees of the institution, who participated in the study through a web-based data collection procedure. Data collected were processed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software package, and data processed were analysed descriptively using frequency count and simple percentage. Findings of the study revealed that the respondents described their socio-economic livelihood conditions within the period of the industrial strike action as difficult. The study also revealed that they coped with such difficulties using different coping strategies including resort to agricultural activities, reduction in the number of meals consumed within the household, cutting down on household utilities, obtaining loans from cooperative organisations, and purchase of food items on credit, among other latent coping strategies. The study therefore recommended the need for civil organisations and all stakeholders in the country, including the media, to mount serious pressures on the federal government, in order to come to renegotiate on the workable terms of agreement with the union of employees within the public tertiary institutions.