Labour gives FG Dec. 31 to submit minimum wage report to NASS

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 organised 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.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that
organised 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.