The organised labour on Thursday called on the Federal
Government to avoid distortion and overlap in the implementation of the new
minimum wage by meeting with the Joint National Public Service Negotiation
Council to generate a fresh salary table so that all civil servants could
benefit from the increase.
On Wednesday, President of the Nigeria Labour Congress,
Ayuba Wabba, in a speech he read on behalf of organised labour in the country
during the May Day celebration, called for immediate implementation of the new
minimum wage, stating that a lot of time was already wasted during negotiation
with the government.
In a statement signed by the chairman of the Trade Union
Side of the JNPSNC, Abdrafiu Adeniji, and the secretary, Alade Lawal, TUS said
a major error was committed in 2011 when the minimum wage was increased to N18,000.
It urged the government to avoid creating crisis in the public service through
improper implementation of the new minimum wage.
The statement said, “The normal practice is that once a new
minimum wage is fixed, a fresh salary table is generated so that employees in
all salary grade levels will benefit from the new emoluments. This is the
standard practice all over the world and Nigeria should not be an exception.
“The generation of a fresh salary table in line with the new
minimum wage will prevent distortion and overlapping. After the 2011 National
Minimum Wage was fixed, the consequential adjustment was not properly handled.
The government decided to award N900 across the board for all the other grade
levels in the civil service, thereby distorting the salary chart. This led to a lot of crisis, a scenario that
should not be allowed to repeat itself this time round.
“The government should not continue to generate avoidable
crisis in the civil service and this is why we are now urging it to do the
needful by urgently inviting the Joint National Public Service Negotiating
Council with a view to commencing negotiation on a new salary table that will
meet the aspirations of workers. When a new salary table is generated, it will
help to maintain the current relativity among all grades in the civil service,”
the statement said.
The union added that the new table would also assist state
governments to have a seamless implementation of the new minimum wage.
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