By By Habeeb Ibrahim
Organized labour has vowed not to accept any unfavourable figure proposed by the Federal Government as the new minimum wage.
Festus Osifo, President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), made this clear on Channels Television’s programme, The Morning Brief.
President Bola Tinubu is expected to send an executive bill to the National Assembly for legislative action, but he has stated that he will only approve a new minimum wage that the Federal Government can afford.
Osifo reacted by saying that Labour will not pre-empt the President, but they are pushing for the N250,000 they presented as the new minimum wage, rather than the N62,000 proposed by the organised private sector and the government.
The TUC President emphasized that the labour union will still approach lawmakers and push for a better deal if Tinubu eventually offers an unfavourable figure. He stated that the work of labour leaders will not end until the Minimum Wage Act 2024 becomes law.
Osifo acknowledged that no figure is sacrosanct and that there is always room for adjustments on the part of all negotiating parties. He recalled that the last industrial action was partly due to the government’s insistence on not adding a single kobo to the proposed N60,000.
“One of the reasons that we went on industrial action the last time was because when it got to N60,000, they told us that a kobo cannot even join the N60,000, that they cannot even add one naira to it,” he recalled. “So, that was one of the reasons that led to that industrial action beyond the fact that there were also delays.”
The leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and TUC had declared a national strike following their failure to reach an agreement with the Federal Government on a new minimum wage.
Organized labour had initially demanded N497,000, which was later reduced to N494,000, but the Federal Government proposed N60,000. Labour leaders are now pushing for N250,000 as the new minimum wage.
