By Naneka Hoffman
Former Ministry of Labor, Cllr. Philip T. Dixon, reveals here that the Liberia Labor Congress has been in leadership crisis since 2020, with two competing leaderships taking each other back and forth in court.
Speaking in an exclusive interview on Tuesday, August 29, 2023 Atty. Dixon explained that the Supreme Court of Liberia in its final ruling called for a new election as one of the purported leaderships’ tenure had expired while the election of the other was invalid.
According to him, both sides have been attending meetings of a committee that they claim not to recognize since February.
He explains that the grouping complaining only began to have problems after August 16th, when he announced the timetable for election.
Cllr. Dixon added that 19 members participated, adding that there is only a small portion (7) of the 26 member organizations that make up the Liberia Labor Congress.
 He says the elections were held in good faith and the court would hand down the ruling on the conduct of their mandate.
It can be recalled that over the weekend, the Liberia Labor Congress Acting Secretary General, John Nyemah Nat, held a press conference in which he rejected the outcome of the election conducted by Counselor Phil Dixon-led special election committee because the Labor Ministry violated mandate of the Supreme Court by conducting the election without taking into consideration the laws governing elections.
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Mr. Nat discloses that the meeting will bring together members of the national executive committee, affiliate unions, and all public sector workers.
He alleges that the Liberia Labor Congress Secretary General threatened to mobilize 900,000 members from the National Teachers Association of Liberia, Civil Servants Association of Liberia, National Health Workers of Liberia and workers in the agricultural and informal sectors in all 15 counties of Liberia to be on standby for an eventual indefinite stay-home action.
Speaking on behalf of the elected members, newly elected Secretary General of the Liberia Labor Congress Marcus S. Blama, says the LLC has been in confusion over leadership for the past two years, adding that the case had dragged from the lower court to the Supreme Court.
According to him, the Supreme Court mandated the lower court to enforce the judgment that was handed down in 2020, detailing that the ruling was that the Ministry of Labor should appoint a creditable committee to conduct election for the LLC because there were no more election commissioners.
Mr. Blama reveals that the commissioners conducted the first election but the results went to court and they could not be found so the Congress couldn’t use them.
According to him, the Labor Ministry should have appointed a creditable committee to hold election for the LLC, adding that they had earlier appointed former Chief Justice Cllr. Gloria Musa Scott, on the committee, adding that they started having meetings together with all the parties until she was charged with murder and taken to jail.
Meanwhile, he acknowledged that Cllr. Dixon was appointed to chair the committee and he subsequently
called the first, and second meetings they all attended, and in the third meeting, they were asked to apply for various elected positions, but their brothers from the other side decided to back off.
He states that the Supreme Court clarifies that Civil Servants, Health Workers, and Teachers Associations are not part of the Liberia Labor Congress because they have different standing rules, adding that this led to disagreement between them because some members are contending that these institutions or associations should be part of the election.Â
