Minimum Wage: FG Pleads with Labour to Accept N20,000 Proposed

The Minister of labour and Employment, Chris Ngige has implored
the organised labour to accept a mutually agreeable new National
Minimum Wage in order to avert labour crisis.

Though, the minister did not disclose the exact figure proposed,
sources told our reporter last night that the government team
offered labour a new minimum wage of N20,000.

Ngige said that Nigeria could not afford rounds of labour
crisis, hence, the imperative for the organised labour to accept a
new National Minimum Wage figure based on the capacity and the
ability of both the government and the private sector to pay in
line with social dialogue and the overall interest of the
nation.

In a statement issued yesterday by the Director Press in the
Ministry, Samuel Olowookere, the minister made the appeal when he
received the new Director General (DG) of the Nigeria Employers
Consultative Association (NECA) Mr. Timothy Olawale and his
predecessor, Mr. Olusegun Oshinowo, in his new office.

Ngige appealed to NECA to weigh its influence on the organised
labour to accede to the new National Minimum Wage figure mutually
agreeable to all the social partners.

“We need to arrive at a figure which the employers can afford to
pay as an employee cannot fix a figure for the employer. Rather, it
must be based on collective bargaining and mutual agreement by the
tripartite partners. It is not a function of moving motions or
voting at the National Tripartite Negotiation committee to insist
that the figure must be as the organised labour appears to make it
look,” he said.

The minister cautioned against heating up the polity, adding
that “government’s proposed new minimum wage figure is clearly
based on critical facts and indices incapable of causing
disequilibrium in the economy or upturning the national social
order”.

He further charged the new NECA boss to exceed the impressive
record of his predecessor.

“You have enormous task ahead of you. The need for the
establishment of more NECA offices across the country cannot be
over emphasised so that more employers association can register
with you”.

Ngige further said that the appeal was in tandem with the
economic policies of the present administration.

According to the minister, the numerous private sector employers
who are informal need to be brought on board the formalised private
sector employers’ body.

Governors of the 36 states of the federation under the auspices
of the Nigeria Governors Forum had on Wednesday declared that they
were not opposed to the ongoing plans to approve a new minimum wage
but that they lacked the capacity to foot the new wage bill.

The governors’ position drew a sharp reaction from the organised
labour, which spoke through the President of the Nigeria Labour
Congress (NLC), Ayuba Wabba, insisting that the implementation of a
new minimum wage was over due.

Ngige however urged the new D-G of NECA to ensure that numerous
private sector employers who are members of NECA as well as those
not yet registered but are defaulting in payment of even the
existing National Minimum Wage of N18, 000 are made to comply with
the law.