Labour gives FG Dec. 31 to submit minimum wage report to National Assembly

The organised labour on Thursday said that the Federal
Government has before or on Dec. 31 to send the tripartite
committee report on N30,000 minimum wage to the National
Assembly.

The three labour centres, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC),
Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the United Labour Congress (ULC)
took the decision after a joint meeting in Lagos.

The organiseed labour gave the ultimatum following President
Muhammadu Buhari’s statement that a “high powered technical
committee” would be set up to device ways to ensure that its
implementation did not lead to an increase in the level of
borrowing.

Buhari spoke at the presentation of 2019 Appropriation Bill to
the National Assembly in Abuja on Wednesday.

The NLC President, Mr Ayuba Wabba, who address newsmen after the
meeting, said that setting up a technical committee could not be a
condition for passing the minimum wage report to the National
Assembly.

Accoridng to Wabba, the organised labour cannot guarantee
industrial peace and harmony in the country if the wage report was
not passed for implementation on or before Dec. 31.

“We reject in its entirety the plan to set up another `high
powered technical committee’ on the minimum wage. It is
diversionary and a delay tactics.

“The national minimum wage committee was both technical and
all-encompassing in its compositions and plan to set up a technical
committee is alien to the tripartite process.

“It is also alien to the International Labour Organisations’
conventions on national minimum wage setting mechanism,’’ he
said.

The labour leader said that issues on payment of minimum wage
was a law that was universal, citing that other African countries
like, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa had increased their minimum
wage this year.

“If you increase minimum wage, you are increasing the purchasing
power of the economy which will help to reduce inflation rather
than increase it,’’ Wabba said.

He urged workers to be vigilant and prepare to campaign and vote
against candidates and politicians who are not willing to implement
the new minimum wage.

Mr Joe Ajaero, President of ULC, also called on the government
to send the report to lawmakers so that the implementation of the
new minimum wage report would begin without delay.

Ajaero said that all affiliate members of the organised labour
had been informed to be alert ahead of the Dec. 31 notice if the
government failed to submit the report.

Labour had planned to go on a nationwide strike on Nov. 6,
following the Federal Government’s delay to accept the N30,000
minimum wage agreement.

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