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The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, and his Trade Union Congress (TUC) counterpart, Festus Osifo, have explained why the Organised Labour agreed to a new minimum wage of ₦70,000 for Nigerian workers.
This decision follows a shift in the wage review cycle from every five years to once every three years.
The announcement was made on Thursday after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the State House in Abuja.
The NLC President said, “What has been announced in terms of the amount of N70,000 happened to be where we are now. But the cool thing about it is that we will not wait for another five years to come on review.
“Rather than settling on a figure that we wait for five years, it’s like we’ll have to now negotiate even two times within five years.
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“That is one of the reasons why we decided to reach where we are today. Because of the proviso that we can review in the next three years.
“The other one, we came with other issues in the basket, like the issue of SSANU, NASU and others, especially with the affront by the Commissioner of Police FCT, we brought it to Mr President, and talk on the need for that matter to be addressed. And magnanimously, he (Tinubu) asked the agencies concerned to work out the modalities for the payment of those workers in the universities.”
Also, Osifo said, “The President (Tinubu) made a pronouncement or announcement of N70,000. By next week, he should put the finishing touches to the bill and the transmission to the National Assembly.
“But why this became a catch is because we, from Organised Labour, have been pushing that the issue of five years review is a long time, that a lot of economic indices may have changed because we are in an era where things are moving very fast in terms of both macro and micro economic policies.
“But there is a caveat that this is going to be done every three years, the next review should be in three years. And after that pronouncement, we from labour received what the President has promised.”
The agreement resulted from a series of negotiations between labour leaders and the President, following months of unsuccessful discussions between labour organizations and a tripartite committee on minimum wage, which was constituted by the President in January.
This committee included representatives from state and federal governments and the Organised Private Sector.
Initially, the committee had proposed a minimum wage of ₦62,000, while labour leaders demanded ₦250,000, citing that the current minimum wage of ₦30,000 was unsustainable due to inflation and the high cost of living, exacerbated by the removal of the petrol subsidy by the President.
On Thursday, the Information Minister confirmed that the agreed-upon amount of ₦70,000 would be communicated to the National Assembly in the coming days.
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