Organised Labour has urged President Bola Tinubu to personally intervene in the ongoing negotiation over minimum wage to avert the indefinite strike action scheduled to start on Monday.
This is as the Federal Government warned that the national minimum wage being demanded by labour could destabilise the economy.
Organised Labour had given a May 31, 2024 ultimatum on the new minimum wage.
On Tuesday, May 28, talks between the Federal Government and Organised Labour broke down after the government and the Organised Private Sector raised their offers to N60,000.
Several impeccable sources from both the Trade Union Congress and Nigeria Labour Congress, who spoke to Sunday PUNCH, stressed that the Federal Government and the organised private sector should not expect labour to accept anything less than a six-digit offer.
The government added N3,000 to its initial offer of N57,000 proposed last week, making the total figure N60,000. It was dismissed by labour at the meeting.
Several impeccable sources from both the Trade Union Congress and Nigeria Labour Congress, who spoke to Sunday PUNCH, stressed that the Federal Government and the organised private sector should not expect labour to accept anything less than a six-digit offer.
The unions said the government was not serious about the negotiations, adding that the shift from N48,000 to N57,000 was too meagre to be considered as ‘shifting grounds’.
They noted that the promise made by President Bola Tinubu when he became President and on Workers’ Day was that the Federal Government would pay a living wage, adding that N57,000 did not fall into that category.
On Friday, the Nigeria Labour Congress declared an indefinite nationwide strike, starting on Monday, June 3, 2024, due to the Federal Government’s refusal to increase the proposed minimum wage above N60,000.
The President of the NLC, Joe Ajaero, announced that the strike followed failed negotiations between the government and organised labour.
Despite the government’s final offer of N60,000, which included a recent increase from an initial N57,000, the labour unions found the proposal insufficient.
At the meeting, labour revised its demand, reducing it by N3,000 from the initial N497,000 proposed last week, setting the new proposal at N494,000.
Despite this concession, the negotiations remained deadlocked as the government maintained its offer of N60,000, leading to the declaration of a nationwide indefinite strike.
However, speaking to our correspondent in a telephone interview in Abuja on Saturday, the Minister of State for Labour, Nkeiruka Onyecheoja, said the strike was unnecessary, urging the Organised Labour to return to the negotiation table for more discourse.
She said, “The government is still willing to accommodate them, to listen to words of reason and knowledge, and to know that the president is committed to the Nigerian workers and Nigerian citizens, all of us.”
Speaking on the N494,000 set by Labour, the minister noted that the government won’t be able to breathe.
She said, “By the time you do adjustments or anything, that means there won’t be…in short, the government will not breathe anymore.
“The government’s position is that the strike is unnecessary. If you say people are hungry, we know that people are hungry and that’s why we can increase the minimum wage, even when it’s not convenient.”
Also reacting to the decision of Organised Labour to embark on strike in protest, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said the sum of N494,000 national minimum wage demanded by organised labour, which cumulatively amounts to the sum of N9.5 trillion bill yearly was capable of destabilising the economy and jeopardiing the welfare of over 200 million Nigerians.
Speaking at a news conference in Abuja, the minister said the offer of N60,000 minimum wage by the Federal Government, which translates to a 100 per cent increase on the existing minimum wage of 2019, had been accepted by the Organised Private Sector, which is a member of the tripartite committee of the negotiations team.
