Organised Labour rejects N27,000 minimum wage

A sector of the Organised Labour has rejected the N27, 000 minimum wage approved by the National Council of State in Abuja for states and the private sector.

The Trade Union Congress (TUC) and United Labour Congress (ULC) had protested that lower wage approved by the Council is unfortunate and shocking.

TUC in a statement by the President, Bobboi Kaigama, insisted that the N27,000 wage must be resisted because it will set a wrong precedence for the future. The Congress protested that the Council lacks the power to alter a decision already taken by statutory bodies.

 “Let it be known that N30, 000 minimum wage is a product of negotiation, not legislation, not advice and not a decree.

“Minimum wage issue therefore, is moving to a new theatre, the National Assembly. We expect the representative of the people if really they are to do the needful during the public hearing.” Kaigama said.

The ULC complained that the resolve of the National Council of State to unilaterally proposed N27, 000 National Minimum Wage “is shocking and goes against the grain of all known traditions and practices of industrial relations especially as it concerns National Minimum Wage setting framework.

ULC President, Joe Ajaero, stated: “ULC rising from its just concluded Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting Tuesday in Lagos rejects in its entirety the proposed N27, 000 which is contrary to the N30,000 agreed by the National Minimum Wage Tripartite Committee and which has since been submitted to the President.

“We state that the National Council of State in a National Minimum Wage setting mechanism is an aberration. It is also important that we make it clear that the National Council of State does not have powers to approve, confirm, affirm or accept any figure as the new National Minimum Wage. What they have pretended to have done is therefore without any force of Law, standards or other known practices of Industrial Relations the world over.

 “We want to state that workers are workers everywhere whether at the federal level or at the state level. They all have the same challenges; go to the same market, same schools and much more they suffer the same fate. You cannot therefore pay them differently.

“The government’s attempt at this dichotomy is an effort at segregation and apartheid in nature. It is an attempt to put a sword within the trade union movement and to further the marginalisation of private sector workers in Nigeria thus seek to weaken the trade union movement in the country.

“ULC saw this coming earlier in January and that was why we distanced ourselves. We will, however, in the next few days in consultation with other labour centres, if they are still in the struggle for a just national minimum wage, take steps to ensure that the interests of Nigerian workers as it concerns the National Minimum Wage are protected.”