Table 26: Ever initiated or supported a move to unionise? Name of sector Total Telecommunication Oil& Gas Banking Ever initiated or supported a move to unionise? Yes No Total 34(50%) 34(50%) 68(26.35%) 60(81.08%) 14(18.91%) 74(28.68%) 38(32.75%) 78(67.24%) 116(44.96%) 132(51.16%) 126(48.84%) 258 Source: Field survey, 2009 From the above table, the percentage of women(26.19%) who have ever initiated a move to unionise is much lower than that of men(63.21%) which is probably an indication of lack of enthusiasm to get involved in the rigours involved in spite of their belief in trade unionism. This means that the unions need to work more on raising workers' consciousness to develop more interest and enthusiasm in trade unionism. In addition, the unions need to adopt a more inclusive approach in their activities such that the interests and concerns of all members, particularly women can be factored in. What we have done thus far is to ascertain the reality of workers' rights in the chosen sectors as perceived by individual respondents covered by this survey. The second source for this study is to establish what obtains generally in each of the sectors, irrespective of the perception or awareness of individual workers located in particularly work organisation. In doing this, we can limit ourselves to three of the core rights. These are the right to freedom of association, the right to organize and collective bargaining as well as the right to work. These rights are recognized by national laws, ILO standards and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights(Articles 23 and 24). At a formal level, the right to freedom of association is well recognized in two of the three sectors covered by this study. These are the banking and oil and gas sectors. This is connected to the legal regime in place from 1978 to around 2005. One of the defining features of the restructuring of trade unions in Nigeria in 1978 is the automatic check-off system by which a worker is deemed to be a member of the relevant union in his/her place of work except the worker contracts out of the union in writing. A corollary of this was that employers were compelled by law to recognize the union in place. By this 48