Michael Ojo
June 10, 2024
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) says its Tuesday deadline still stands and its position is clear, as it has never contemplated N100,000 as the minimum wage for workers in the country let alone the N62,000 offered by the government.
Chris Onyeka, NLC Assistant General Secretary clarified the union’s position on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief show on Monday.
According to him, labour would neither accept the government’s latest offer of N62,000 nor the N100,000 proposal by some individuals and economists.
“We have never considered accepting N62,000 or any other wage that we know is below what we know is able to take Nigerian workers home. We will not negotiate a starvation wage”, Onyeka said.
“We have never contemplated N100,000 let alone of N62,000. We are still at N250,000, that is where we are, and that is what we considered enough concession to the government and the other social partners in this particular situation. We are not just driven by frivolities but the realities of the market place; realities of things we buy every day: bag of rice, yam, garri, and all of that.”
Labour insisted on N250,000 in its latest demand at the last meeting of the Tripartite Committee on Minimum Wage on Friday, as the living wage for an average Nigerian worker.
Onyeka said the one-week grace period given to the Federal Government last Tuesday, June 4, 2024, would expire by the midnight of Tuesday, June 11, 2024.
He said should the Federal Government and National Assembly fail to act on the demands of workers by Tuesday, the organs of the NLC and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) would meet to decide on the resumption of the nationwide industrial action relaxed last week.
“The Federal Government and the National Assembly have the call now. It is not our call. Our demand is there for 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.
“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.”
