Abuja – The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has warned that it cannot guarantee industrial peace by May 1, if the Federal Government fails to address the National Minimum Wage issue.
The NLC President, Mr Ayuba Wabba, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.
“Guaranteeing industrial peace and harmony means that if by May 1 nothing concrete is put on ground to address the issue of minimum wage, we cannot guarantee industrial peace and harmony; so, it can take any form.
“So, that is a statement that we have made, looking at the pathetic situation of workers and pensioners, of which looking at the economics of scale particularly the purchasing power of workers, issues keep getting complicated by the day.
“You know the cost of kerosene now, you know the cost of cooking gas and other essential commodities, diesel that drives development and drives production.
“So looking at these issues, which are getting worse by the day, it is very clear that if we do not do something the situation will kill workers.
“So you need workers to be alive to be productive; so the essential issue is that this particular challenge in the economy is grating harder on workers, pensioners and their families because they are on a fixed wage.’’
NAN reports that minimum wage is the least amount that could be paid within an economy to job-holders of different cadres.
The amount so described, often backed by legal enactment is determined after reasonable adjustment has been made for cost of living index, inflation and other socio-political and economic considerations.
The amount is assumed to be capable of sustenance and maintenance of minimum standard of living.
In Nigeria, it is controversial, just how much should constitute minimum wage, and thus in 1999, NLC pushed in favour of a minimum wage increase from N7,500 (for Federal civil service) and N5,500 (for state civil service and private sector) to N20,000.
By 2011, in spite of NLC asking for N52,000, both NLC and TUC finally agreed to Federal Government’s offer of N18,000 minimum wage.
Wabba, therefore, said that it was essential for the Federal Government to implement the new wage as the current wage being paid them would not be enough to meet their families’ needs.
It will be recalled that the Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige had said in a statement recently that a technical working committee had been constituted to work out the minimum wage.
However, the NLC president said that the committee for the new National Minimum Wage had yet to be constituted by the Federal Government.
“What the minister is referring to is the Technical Committee on Palliatives which recommended in its report that there was need for the composition of the Minimum Wage Committee.
“It recommended that the committee for the minimum wage should be set up immediately, but as we speak the committee has not been constituted because the palliative is just tidying up their report properly, so until palliative report is adopted and submitted, the minimum committee will then be up later,’’ he said.
Wabba stated that the Nigeria labour movement does not plan to propose an upward review of the N56,000 new minimum wage proposal it has already submitted.
He added that, for now labour would leave the proposed wage at N56,000 “because it is a document that we have already signed.
“By law under convention 144 of International Labour Organisation (ILO), it is the most representative Labour Centre that galvanises others to make a formal presentation and that we have made with the Trade Union Congress.
“If there is need to look at the data on the negotiating table, we are going to do that, but also we have been looking at the position of our economy that is why we are being realistic.’’
