Strike as a social problem can first be traced to the disfunctioning of the society when looking at it from the functionalist perspective. Functionalism which is one of the perspectives of studying the society was developed in the 19th century, it’s a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. This approach looks at society through a macro-level orientation, which is a broad focus on the social structures that shape society as a whole, and believes that society has evolved like organisms. This approach looks at both social structure and social functions. Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements; namely norms, custom, tradition and institution. A common analogy, popularized by Herbert Spencer presents these parts of society as "organs" that work toward the proper functioning of the "body" as a whole. In the most basic terms, it simply emphasizes "the effort to impute, as rigorously as possible, to each feature, custom, or practice, its effect on the functioning of a supposedly stable, cohesive system". For Talcott Parson "structural-functionalism" came to describe a particular stage in the methodological development of Social Science, rather than a specific school of thought. The structural functionalism approach is a macro sociological analysis, with a broad focus on social structures that shape society as a whole. In summary Functionalism believes every social structure in the society like Educational structure, Economic structure, Political structure, Family structure etc should all work together for the effective growth and promotion of the society and if any one deviate from its function it will affect the whole society as a whole and thereby brings about Social Problem, so the structure of the society or the society as a whole will therefore work together to bring about solidarity in the society which might have negative or positive consequence on the society and the negative consequence result into what is called Social Problem which can be define as anything that affect the normal functioning of the society, each society has what they call their own social problem as what affect one society negatively can be of positive effect to other society, For example smoking marijuana which is a social problem in Arab countries is considered legal in some part of the world like Jamaica and some part of USA so far it doesn’t pass a certain legalized quantity. So what a society tag social problem must be a phenomena that affect them specifically
Strike as a social problem, which can also be called called labor strike (French:grève), is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution due to constant failure of the political structure to maintain stability and avoid alienation and exploitation among the employer and employees and this makes it a social problem to every society due to the importance of mass labor in factories and mines. In most countries, strike actions were quickly made illegal, as factory owners have far more political power than workers. Most western countries partially legalized striking in the late 19th or early 20th centuries.Strikes are sometimes used to pressure governments to change policies. Occasionally, strikes destabilize the rule of a particular political party or ruler; in such cases, strikes are often part of a broader social movement taking the form of a campaign of civil resistance. Therefore it’s disorganization of societal function, norms and policies through forceful pressure on the political structure which brings up different societal negative occurrence makes it a social problem. Strike isn’t the measure the structures (labor) use to organize the disfuctioned society other measure like boycott, riot, dialogue etc can also be used but for this case we forcing only on strike.
The recent Labor strike that happened in Nigeria is the one between Universities Workers and The Federal Government which is normally called ASSU STRIKE. This strike was help by the body called The Academic Staff Union Of University (ASUU) which was formed in 1978, a successor to the Nigerian Association of University Teachers formed in 1965 and covering academic staff in all of the Federal and State Universities in the country. The Strike was caused due to the misunderstanding between universities lectures and the federal government due to the poor funding of the Educational sector of the country which started right from the genesis of Nigeria administration after colonialism. Looking at the down turn of the country, the general economic downturn especially of the 1980s resulted in instability and financial inadequacy for the Nigerian educational system. Crisis between 1979-1999 led to several work stoppages. Regular occurrences include unpaid teachers’ salaries, the degeneration of educational facilities and infrastructure at all levels and the attendant common place strikes across all tiers of Nigeria education system. Poor financial investment has generally been seen as the plague of Nigerian education system so much so that budgeting allocation has been very low compared to other sectors. During the oil crisis in the 80s, the administration and funding of the Universal Primary Education (UPE) scheme was decentralized. At college and University levels, the changes included the termination of the student – teachers’ bursary awards and subsidized feeding for students in higher education institutions. Furthermore, the federal government allocation to education has declined steadily since 1999 and this is particularly important in view of huge rise in number of intake at all levels of education – primary, secondary and tertiary. In 1999, government scrapped the National Primary Education Fund (NPEF) and reconstituted it under another name (The National primary Education Commission). This action was taken in recognition of the states and local governments’ constitutional responsibility for financing and managing primary education. Alternative source of funding education explored by government is the Education Tax Fund (ETF, 1995) which ensured that companies with more than 100 employees contribute 2% of their pre-tax earnings to the fund. Primary education receives 40% of this fund. Secondary education receives 10% and higher education 50%. Primary education has in the past also received from Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) for capital expenditure and provision of instructional materials. In higher institutions, gifts, endowment funds, consultancy services, farms, satellite campuses, pre-degrees etc are other alternative funding sources. Despite all the alternatives, infrastructure and facilities remained inadequate to cope with a system that is growing at a very rapid pace. As a result of poor financing, the quality of education offered was affected by poor attendance and inadequate preparation by teachers at all levels. The morale of teachers is low due to basic condition of service and low salaries. Recent World Bank Development report pointed out problems emanating as a result of this which can be called “functional illiteracy”: increasing enrolment rate but with a missing quality-application of knowledge-dimension in literacy. In addition, physical facilities need to be upgraded and resources such as libraries, laboratories, modern communication and Information technology equipment have to be provided. The quest for meeting these basic educational needs has been the cause of unending crisis between government, and trade unions such as Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), ASUU, Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU). A close look at the distribution of government budgetary allocation to education as a percentage of total budget shows a level of inconsistency. Instead of maintaining an increasing proportion of the yearly budget, it has been largely fluctuating since introduction of SAP in 1986. Regardless of incessant strikes and negotiation to stimulate governments to increase the proportion, the proportion has been below 8% apart from 1994 and 2002, which were slightly above 9%. A breakdown of the education allocation to capital and recurrent expenditure is shown in the chart below. Since the oil crisis in the eighties, the proportion of capital budget allocated to education has been consistently lower than the proportion of recurrent expenditure. Over the years, the government capital expenditure allocated to education as a percentage of total capital budget ranged from as low as 1.71 in 1999 and not up to 9% in all cases. This has retarded progress in building new facilities and meeting with growth challenges which has consistently led to strikes by NUT, ASUU, NASU and other bodies coordinating the grievances of the workers.
This consistent strike has lots of effect on the society as a whole, this society affected by this Labor Strike can be stream lined to the Workers, the consumers and the nation as a whole and the general public image. For example the recently ended ASUU strike has a lot of socio-psychological effect on the student, the parent, the nation, the lecturer and the educational sector itself. This effect can either be in a positive or negative way.
Though many speculation has arise when researches is being carried out either through media, group discussion or organized research that the University Lecturers has lots of positive effect being attached to the strike
The positive effect to lecturers includes;
Increased allowances for project supervision, call duty, extra hours worked and hazards etc, Payment of salaries and entitlements for the several months in which they didn’t work, Lecturers of schools that didn’t partake in the struggle e.g. UNILORIN and RSUST will also benefit from the infrastructure funds and the earned allowances.
As the adage says what goes around comes around in-depth research also speculate that these lecturers also experienced some negative effect which include delay in obtaining Masters and PhD’s for those still doing their postgraduate studies, death of some lecturers due to constant idleness thereby increasing weakness of their body system as a result of old age which lead to low blood pressure and which eventually lead to the death of some lecturers.

Student also has both positive and negative effect from the recently concluded strike.
The positive effect can also be highlighted as follows;
1.Tthe funds released for infrastructure will be used to meet the immediate needs of our schools, like funding the construction of more hostels, equips libraries, provide internet connectivity, build laboratories and furnish them, amongst others. These are projects that will aid learning and ultimately benefit students.
2. Those that will later join the academia and become Professors among us will also have the benefit of retiring at 70 years.
3. Those that will join the academia among us will also enjoy the special allowances that the current struggle will benefit lecturers in the years to come.
The negative effect includes
1.BATTERED ACADEMIC CALENDAR Our Schools have lost a semester which cannot be made up for. Most schools were either in their second semester of the 2012/2013 session or were rounding up their first semester exams when the strike began. This will result in an abridged semester and most schools will finish their 2012/2013 session in 2014. What this implies is that those that wrote the 2013 UTME and will be offered admission (most schools have not released their admission list) might not resume until probably March next year (when another UTME will be on the way) This will inadvertently result in late resumption of the 2013/2014 academic session which is likely to finish early 2015 (provided ASUU does not embark on another strike action before then). Academic calendar is thus in tatters!

2. DELAY IN THE RELEASE OF ADMISSION LIST.
It is pertinent to note that a lot of prospective University students do not know their fate regarding admission as a result of the strike action.

3. LAW STUDENTS CANNOT GO TO LAW SCHOOL TILL NEXT YEAR OCTOBER.
2012/2013 Final year Law students must be cursing down their throats as the strike has barred them from progressing to the Law school this year. When the dust of this strike settles, they will have to wait till next year October before they can go to the Law school. This is not the only problem because Law graduate of next year 2014 might not be able to go to the Law school till 2015. One year wasted!. One might say two (2) sets will be merged but those in the know-how will tell you that the Law school has a quota for each school.

4. FIERCE COMPETITION FOR 2014 NYSC BATCH ‘B’.
As a result of this strike action, most public Universities (except probably UNILORIN) cannot present Students for November 2013,BATCH ‘C’ service year and with the look of things, public Universities might not be able to meet up with February 2014 BATCH ‘A’ Service year thus resulting in a fierce competition by students to be mobilized for service next year June BATCH ‘B’. What this means is that some students who were supposed to go for service in 2013 will be deferred to November, 2014 and some till February 2015. Are you calculating the time wasted?

5. SOME PROJECT STUDENTS MIGHT HAVE TO START ALL OVER
2012/2013 Final year students of most schools who were working on their projects (Science-related) when the strike action began might have to start again because the results obtained then might not be tenable again. This results in waste of scarce resources, time and energy. Having considered the gains and pains of the current struggle, Nigerian Students can now decide if they wish to continue supporting ASUU or reconsider their support. We can decide if the gain of the struggle outweighs the sacrifice we are paying or otherwise The recently concluded ASUU strike doesn’t only affect Lecturers and Student only it also affected the whole nation as a whole like the poor public image we painted to the outside world of our inability to efficient manage our Educational sector being refer to as the Giant of Africa, it also affected the nation internally due to the increase deviance behavior and breakages from societal norms and values like prostitution among female students, rape, teenage pregnancy, unwanted pregnancy and increased in cyber crime among idle student and also the disappoiment the parent experienced seeing their children waging around the street instead of being in school. Looking at the retailers and theservice provider( bus and cab drivers) they were alsoaffected as most of them complian of low income and some even closed down there business bringing about lots of societal problem
The Strike leaves every individual either as a student, lecturer or the society as a whole who are concerned with the Educational sector with different personal experience. Mine as a student was quite straight forward, being disappointed with the educational structure of Nigeria society, I had to erase my mind off books studying, theoretical readings, and the four walls of school and as a faithful citizen of the country who doesn’t want to be a deviant to the society by going against the societal norms and values. I decided to practice what have been thought within the four walls of school for the past 3 years on the society as a whole by joining different societal forums and groups with each focusing on different sociological aspect of the society like cultural preservation and understanding, different research work which focus on things like the recently concluded ASSU Strike, Terrorist attack in the north(BOKO HARAM), Political issues and crisis etc..This has really affect my sociological understanding of my society as whole positive and things that were based on theories e.g. Functionalist view of the society, Conflict view, Feminist work etc which has been thought on theoretical bases became clear to me through the time I had to administer the theory on my society.
In summary Labor strike is a social problem to the society as a whole due to different negative effect it brings on the society in which few have be alighted above but it’s also has it’s positive effect has it’s gives the people of the society room for expressing their views and grieves. Strike being a social problem that has both negative and positive effect on the society has also lead to the development of societal coping strategies by the affected party to solve this whole negative issues, so each affected party has is own experience and develop its own desired coping strategy, for example using my experience, the strike caused me to stay idle for the whole six month but I develop of special coping strategy f utilizing the break by applying my sociological gained experience to my research works and better understanding of my society as in whole in a sociological manner.

Kelani Oluwasegun Yinka
Department Of Sociology
University Of Ibadan