Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, says it will insist on nothing less than N250,000 minimum wage at its meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the State House, Abuja, today (Thursday).
This was disclosed by the head of Public Affairs of the NLC, Benson Upah.
“We are going to the table with our demand of N250,000 even as the cost of living has since moved up. We have been very reasonable and patriotic,” Upah said.
The organised labour and the federal government have been engaged in series of meetings over minimum wage, with most ending in deadlock due to disagreements over the minimum amount payable to workers by governments and the private sector.
While labour had insisted on N250,000 basing it stance on the current economic reality, the federal and state governments had pegged their stance on N62,000.
For further negotiations on the issues, the president invited the labour leaders to a meeting in furtherance of his promise to hold more consultations with stakeholders on the minimum wage saga.
The proposed meeting followed the president’s Democracy Day speech on June 12, 2024, that an executive bill on the new national minimum wage would soon be sent to the National Assembly for passage.
On June 25, the Federal Executive Council chaired by the president stepped down deliberation on the new minimum wage memo to allow for more engagement with stakeholders ahead of the planned executive bill.
The decision came after a report by the Committee on Minimum Wage chaired by Bukar Goni Aji.
The report, which was to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume, recommended N62,000 minimum wage based on the submissions by federal, state governments and the organised private sector, as against labour’s N250,000.
To press home their demands, the labour unions led by the NLC and Trade Union Congress, TUC, declared an indefinite strike on June 3, crippling economic activities and government operations nationwide.
However, the strike was suspended after a meeting between the labour leaders and top government officials who gave assurances that the government was willing to increase its offer.
President Bola Tinubu set up the tripartite committee in January to negotiate a new minimum wage for workers ahead of the expiration of the Minimum Wage Act of 2019, in April 2024.
Meanwhile, it’s left to be seen how the matter is resolved at today’s meeting, considering the organised labour’s insistence on N250,000.
