Labour Dumps FG’s Fresh ₦60,000 Wage Offer, Shifts To ₦494,000
Workers Churn FG’s New ₦60,000 Salary Offer, Bringing It Down to ₦494,000
The federal government’s latest minimum wage proposal has been roundly rejected by the organised labour movement.
At present, organised labour, which includes the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), turned down the federal government’s proposal to pay ₦60,000 as the new minimum wage for employees.
The attitude of the Organised Labour also changed, going from ₦497,000 to ₦494,000, from last week.
According to a well-known member of the Tripartite Committee, which is tasked with negotiating a new minimum wage for Nigerian workers, the Federal Government and the Organised Private Sector (OPS) submitted a revised monthly wage proposal of 60,000 Naira on Tuesday, up from 57,000 Naira last week.
Just last week, the organised labour similarly rejected the 48,000 and 54,000 ₦original proposals made by the government and the OPS.
Additionally, organised labour had proposed 615,000 as the new minimum wage; however, they saw grounds to reduce their demand to 497,000 last week and then to 494,000 today.
Unfortunately, no one came up with a new minimum wage amount during today’s meeting, therefore the proceedings ended in a deadlock.
Nearly three days before the May 31 deadline that the Nigerian labour unions set for the government to end the minimum wage negotiations, the Tripartite Committee has still not reached a consensus on a new minimum wage.
Unions representing Nigerian workers have voiced their displeasure that not all governors are meeting their financial obligations to pay the current minimum wage of ₦30,000. This wage award will expire in April 2024, five years after former President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Minimum Wage Act of 2019, according to the unions. In order to keep up with the changing needs of workers in today’s economy, we should review the Act every five years.
Joe Ajaero, president of the National Labour Congress, called the most recent administration plans “unsubstantial.” As the union boss put it, “It is still not substantial compared to what we need to make a family move.”
“The workers’ economy has completely collapsed.” Actually, there is no economy among the workers. There are two economies at work here, in my opinion: the bourgeoisie’s and the workers’. The idea of a meeting point necessitates that we harmonise this, according to Ajaero.