- By Halimah Olamide
The organised labour has said the Federal Government either accepts the N250,000 minimum wage proposed by it or its leaders will call workers to down tools again nationwide as from Tuesday June 11.
The labour said N62,000 as proposed by the government at the last triparte meeting remains unacceptable describing it as “starvation wage.”
Featuring on a live programme on Channels Television on Monday, Chris Onyeka, an Assistant General Secretary of the NLC, said government appears to be far removed from the people hence unaware of the sufferings in the land.
“The Federal Government and the National Assembly have the call now. It is not our call. Our demand is there for them (the government) to look at and send an Executive Bill to the National Assembly, and for the National Assembly to look at what we have demanded, the various fact of the law, and then come up with a National Minimum Act that meets our demands,” Onyeka said during the interview
He said at no time did the labour leaders accept the proposed N62,000 saying that leaders of the workers made it clear that in the face of a bag of rice being sold for N88,000, there is no way N62,000 can be taken as the minimum wage.
He added, ““It was clear what we said. We said we are relaxing a nationwide indefinite strike. It’s like putting a pause on it. So, if you put a pause on something and that organs that govern us as trade unions decide that we should remove that pause, it means that we go back to what was in existence before.”
NPO Reports that the leaders of the NLC and the Trade Union Congress had last week crippled the nation after calling out workers over the controversial minimum wage crisis.
The current minimum wage stands at N30,000.
The 36 governors of the federation have said N62,000 is not feasible. A statement last week by the Nigerian Governors’ Forum had claimed that the N62,000 was unsustainable.
“All things considered, the NGF holds that the N60,000 minimum wage proposal is not sustainable and can not fly. It will simply mean that many states will spend all their FAAC allocations on just paying salaries with nothing left for development purposes,” the Forum had said
Appealing to all parties involved, especially the labour unions, the forum said all socioeconomic variables should be taken into consideration adding that the parties should “settle for an agreement that is sustainable, durable, and fair to all other segments of the society who have legitimate claim to public resources.”
“In fact, a few states will end up borrowing to pay workers every month. We do not think this will be in the collective interest of the country, including workers,”
The forum also advised all the parties to look beyond just signing a document for the sake of it; adding “any agreement to be signed should be sustainable and realistic.”
NGF’s position on Friday followed the reported submission of a report by the Minister of Finance Wale Edun, that a sum of N60,000 is being proposed for workers.
The Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress had called out workers this week on a nationwide strike which paralysed the economy.
The government had called for resumption of negotiations after what it saw as the full impact of the strike.