Oluwatosin Enesi
The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Comrade Joe Ajaero on Thursday said the discussion on minimum wage that has stalled for some time will resume on May 15, 2024.
Ajaero said the union and members of the tripartite committee will meet with the federal government to unanimously agree on a minimum wage for Nigeria.
It will be recalled that on May 1, 2024, the NLC and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) said they had proposed N615,000 as minimum wage for Nigerians.
The amount was to cushion the harsh effect of various economic reforms under the President BolaTinubu-led administration.
Speaking on the government’s response to their demands, Ajaero said, “Well, we got to a level in the process of negotiation that we had meetings, and then we decided to do a public hearing across the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria and came back on they (federal government) asked labour to make their demand.
“So, we collated all the proposals nationwide and forwarded to them, the NLC and TUC, and what we got, to be the cost of living, was about N615,000, which we communicated to the government before Good Friday.
“Between that time and now, there has not been any meeting for us to deliberate on this, except after May Day. Just yesterday evening, we got an invitation for a Zoom meeting on the 15th to discuss this, so I don’t know how serious that might be.
”The NLC boss also noted that the union has written to the federal government to withhold the implementation of the 0.5 per cent Cybersecurity levy, failure to do so will attract industrial action from the union.
He said, “Whatever action we intend to commence will be dependent on if they go ahead to start, then we respond appropriately”.
Ajaero reiterated that Nigeria is a democratic nation, not a dictatorship era, and as such, the will of the people will prevail.
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