Falana: No Federalism in Minimum Wage

Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mr.
Femi Falana, has said there is no federalism when it comes to the
payment of living wages to workers in the country, stressing that
it is wrong for state governments to insist that each state should
be allowed to pay what they can afford as minimum wage.

The senior lawyer has also urged the senator representing Kogi
West, Dino Melaye, to submit himself to the police for arrest
without further delay so as to end the needless drama and the
unwarranted inconvenience to which his family members and
neighbours have been subjected for the past six days.

Speaking Thursday on Arise News, a sister broadcast arm of
THISDAY Newspaper, Falana argued that even in the United States of
America where Nigeria copied its type of democracy, the Congress
prescribed the national minimum wage from which the states can only
add but not reduce.

According to him, “Section 16 of the Nigerian Constitution does
not talk of minimum wage alone, but a living minimum wage payable
by the government of Nigeria. As a matter of fact, the labour
movement has generous in asking for just N30,000 considering the
living standard in the country today.”

He said that it was wrong for states to want to determine
whatever they want to pay as minimum wage, saying this is not done
in any civilised society.

“There must be an irreducible minimum wage payable by employers
of labour, otherwise if you say you are going to liberalise the
payment of minimum wage, many people would be paid what you may
call a starvation wage.”

Falana added that the Minimum Wage Act of 2011 has to be
amended, stressing that the National Assembly should not wait for
the president to send the bill.

He said there is nowhere in the world where the state
governments or the local governments determine what they want to
pay. “In the US, which is a bastion of our form of federalism, and
normally our reference point, has a national minimum wage act
enacted by the Congress, not by individual state governments.

“Today the minimum wage in America is $7.25 per hour. But not
less than 29 states pay higher! So when you set the minimum
standard, state governments and local governments can then pay
higher, but nobody can pay below the minimum wage,” Falana
explained.