Labour on Wednesday said it would
demand for two years arrears payment of the proposed new national minimum wage
for Nigerian workers from the federal and state governments.
Ayuba Wabba, president of the
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), said this when Rosa Pavanelli, general
secretary, Public Service International (PSI), visited him in his office in
Abuja.
Wabba said the delay by President
Muhammadu Buhari in transmitting the executive bill to the national assembly
was worrisome.
He said: “Workers in the country
have made tremendous sacrifice and I think going forward, we are going to
demand for arrears of those two years we have lost.
“Because I think with all
fairness and justice, as they are going out to campaign we will also go out to
campaign for our minimum wage.
“I also want to inform you that
we have passed the first hurdle and it took us almost a year to be at the
tripartite negotiation table for a figure, and we have agreed on a figure of
N30, 000.
“That figure has been transmitted
to the Mr President who set up the committee and we have also told them to
forward an executive bill immediately to the national assembly.
“We are not unaware of the new
tactics by the state governors to try to arm-twist what has already been
done,’’ he said.
Wabba explained that six state
governors were part of the negotiation process, with each representing their
geopolitical zones.
He told Pavanelli how public
hearings were held in the zones, where the state governors were invited to make
their inputs.
“So, mutually on the negotiation
table, we have looked at all other factors, especially factors that were
provided in convention 131 and 95 of the International Labour Organisation on
the minimum wage in which five factors were considered,” he said.
“The issue of the purchasing
power parity, inflation, ability to pay, all those factors were considered and
that is how our demand of N66, 500 was then agreed mutually on N30, 000.
“So, workers have made enough
sacrifices as we have lost already two years.”
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