Minimum Wage: Slow Pace of Negotiations Worries Labour

• Minimum Wage: Slow Pace of Negotiations Worries Labour

Organised labour has decried the slow pace of negotiations over the new national minimum wage, calling on workers to be alert as the road to the minimum wage may not be smooth.

The Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees (AUPCTRE), Comrade Benjamin Anthony, expressed workers’ discontentment at the slow pace of work on the issue of minimum wage.

Anthony said the workers were waiting for the government’s pronouncement on the new minimum wage, adding that workers had been short-changed for the past two years, based on the law on minimum wage.

He said: “We observed with great discontentment the slow pace of work on the new national minimum wage. The current minimum wage law came into effect in 2011 and it was designed for review every five years.

“By implication, another minimum wage ought to have been signed into law since 2016. That is to say that Nigerian workers have been denied the fruit of their labour for the past two years.

“As we patiently await the pronouncement of the new minimum wage at the third quarter of the year as announced by the Minister of Labour, Dr. Chris Ngige, during the just-concluded 40th anniversary of the Nigeria Labour Congress. I implore workers to be at alert as the road to the minimum wage might not be smooth.

The labour leader called on workers to resist the deceit of political class that resources were not enough to pay minimum wage considering the wide gap that exist between the salaries of political office holders and the toiling workers that produce the wealth of the nation.

He said workers would no longer accept N18, 000 minimum wage when a Senator collects N13.5 million monthly as running cost.

Also, the AUPCTRE FCT Chapter Acting Chairman, Comrade Aliyu Maradun said: “Someone sitting somewhere (Senator) cannot be collecting N13.5 million incentive in a month, and you pay a miserable N18, 000 to a worker in a month. It is unacceptable, it is not possible and it is not going to work.”

“On the strength of the above, permit me to state, with every seriousness, that the primary objective of our union is to defend the economic interest of our members through diligent negotiations, dialogue, collective bargaining, trade dispute, protest, rallies and strikes.”

Maradun said trade union is an integral part of the society and has become an important part of the economic fabric of Nigeria, recognised and consulted by employers of labour and governments.

Nigerian Civil Service Union President, Comrade Kiri Mohammed, said the new demand reflected inflation and other economic realities.

He said: “We submitted our request, NLC has decided to look at the figure and modify it; we actually modified it, an upward review above N56,000, but I am not going to tell you how much because the president (Ayuba Wabba) is supposed to say it.

“We have submitted it to the secretariat of the tripartite committee. The review is in conjunction with the Trade Union Congress (TUC). You can’t do it alone. All of us met and decided to put heads together and look at the realities on the ground.”

Kiri expressed confidence that the minimum wage bill would be passed by the National Assembly and implemented by the Federal Government this year.

He asked: “Who made the budget?” adding: “I believe if the government is serious, we can finish this matter towards the middle of this year, June, July.

“If we can finish at that time, then before the end of the year, certainly the President must send whatever we agreed on to the National Assembly for them to look at it and for him to assent to it as a law, but I know that once we agreed, government would implement whatever is agreed.”

Wabba has also warned those he accused of working against the realisation of the new minimum wage within government so also that labour would resist their antics.

He vowed to resist any attempt to slowdown the review of the national minimum wage. “Let us use this medium to serve notice to those who seek to slow down or frustrate the process of review that they will be resisted in like manner as our predecessors did.

“We are prepared to deal with employers, especially governors, who deny workers and pensioners their salaries and pension. Workers and their families would not give them any further political support, especially their votes,” Wabba warned.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government, through the Minister, has assured workers of the introduction of a new minimum wage latest by the third quarter of the year.

The Minister, who gave the assurance recently, added that implementation of the new pay would take effect immediately after the announcement.

He added that the government was already receiving memoranda from relevant bodies and persons to enable the determination of the new minimum wage.