The organised labour has insisted that that the federal government approves its demand of N250,000 minimum wage or face a continuation of its suspended strike action.
The labour dismissed a minimum wage of N62,000 or N100,000 as insufficient, hinting that may resume the strike after a meeting on Tuesday to determine whether to resume the nationwide strike it suspended last week.
The Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, and Trade Union Congress, TUC, had last week Tuesday suspended a nationwide strike they embarked upon over issues centring on increase in the minimum wage paid workers in the cointry.
Suspension of the industrial action followed pleas by the federal government for more negotiations.
But speaking while appearing on Channels Television’s The Morning Show on Monday, the assistant general secretary of NLC, Chris Onyeka, stated that the federal government has no other option but to send an executive bill to the National Assembly to approve their request of N250,000 minimum wage.
According to him, “The Federal Government and the National Assembly have the call now. It is not our call. Our demand is there for them (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.
“If that does not meet our demand, we have given the federal government a one-week notice to look at the issues and that one week expires tomorrow (Tuesday). If after tomorrow, we have not seen any tangible response from the government, the organs of the Organised Labour will meet to decide on what next.
“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.
“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.
“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.”
