According to Joe Ajaero, President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Organized Labor will wait for President Bola Tinubu’s decision regarding the recommendations that the Tripartite Committee on Minimum Wage has provided to him. Ajaero opted off taking industrial action until the President expressed his opinion on the two ideas that were made to him about the nation’s new minimum wage for workers.
The federal and state governments, along with the Organized Private Sector, suggested ₦62,000 as the living wage for workers, but Labor insisted on ₦250,000. Through George Akume, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), the tripartite committee delivered the two suggestions to the President on Monday. Ajaero stated that the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the NLC organs would determine the course of action following the President’s approval of any of the two proposals, just hours after the papers containing the two recommendations were submitted to the President.
At the International Labour Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, the chairman of the NLC gave a speech. “The President has received two reports,” stated Ajaero. “The NLC will wait for the next course of action, depending on how the President handles this matter.”
“The NLC will proceed with taking specific actions and will not have its stance relayed to the President. But the National Executive Council will have a lot to talk about when the President finally makes a decision on this. We will proceed in accordance with their instructions. Ajaero also made fun of the state governors who are members of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum for claiming that the federal government’s proposed N62,000 minimum wage was unaffordable.
Ajaero’s most recent declaration stood in stark contrast to Labour’s announcement last week that a meeting of its organs will be held to determine whether or not to resume the mild industrial action. Labour had stated that the Federal Government’s one-week grace period, granted last Tuesday, June 4, 2024, will end at midnight on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. Labour had stated that the organs of the NLC and the TUC would meet to decide whether to resume the statewide industrial action that was eased last week if the Federal Government and National Assembly did not respond to worker demands by today (Tuesday).
The Nigeria Labour Congress’s (NLC) Assistant General Secretary, Chris Onyeka, stated, “The Federal Government and the National Assembly have the call now,” during his appearance on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief program on Monday. We are not calling for it. We want the administration to review and submit an Executive Bill to the National Assembly, and we want the National Assembly to consider our demands and the different aspects of the law before creating a National Minimum Act that satisfies them. “We have offered the Federal Government one week to look at the concerns, and that one week expires on Tuesday, if that does not meet our requirement. The Organized Labor will convene to choose the next course of action if, by tomorrow, we have not received a concrete response from the government.”
He had responded, “It was clear what we said,” when asked what Labour’s position would be if the government insisted on ₦62,000 instead. We declared that a nationwide, indefinite strike would be eased. It’s as like you’re pausing it. Therefore, if anything is put on hold and the trade union institutions that oversee us determine that it should be lifted, it signifies a return to the previous state of affairs.
The NLC spokesman added that Labour never considered ₦100,000 as the nation’s minimum pay for laborers, much less the ₦62,000 that the government offers. At the most recent Tripartite Committee on Minimum Wage meeting on Friday, he emphasized that ₦250,000 should be the living wage for the typical Nigerian worker. This was his latest demand. He asserted that labor would not accept the most recent ₦62,000 offer from the government or the ₦100,000 suggestion made by certain persons and economists. Onyeka declared, “We have never given thought to taking ₦62,000 or any other wage that we know is insufficient to send Nigerian workers home. We’re not going to bargain for a pitiful salary.
“We had never considered spending ₦100,000, much less ₦62,000. We deemed it to be sufficient accommodation for the government and other relevant stakeholders in this specific scenario, therefore we remain at ₦250,000. Our motivations are not limited to frivolities; they also take into account the reality of the market and the products we often purchase, such as garri, yam, and bags of rice.
On Monday, June 3, 2024, Labour called an indefinite strike action following weeks of fruitless negotiations over a new national minimum wage for workers. As labor shut down the National Assembly, state assemblies’ complexes, banks, hospitals, airports, and the national grid, business was paralyzed. The labor unions claimed that the current ₦30,000 minimum wage was insufficient to support the well-being of the typical Nigerian worker and that the government should provide workers with a more competitive wage in light of the country’s current inflationary pressures, the consequences of the administration’s twin policies of eliminating gasoline subsidies, and the unification of its forex windows.
The labor unions also bemoaned the fact that certain states are not paying the existing salary award, which ran out in April 2024—five years after former President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Minimum salary Act of 2019. Every five years, the Act should be reviewed to ensure it still meets the needs of modern workers in terms of the economy. President Bola Tinubu established a tripartite committee in January 2024 to negotiate a new national minimum wage. Labour first proposed a new minimum wage of ₦615,000 at the beginning of the negotiations, but they then saw fit to lower their demand to ₦497,000 and then ₦494,000.
Additionally, at first, the government and the Organized Private Sector offered ₦48,000, ₦54,000, ₦57,000, and eventually ₦60,000; however, Labour rejected all four proposals, which led to the strike. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, stated that the President was committed to a wage above ₦60,000 and that the government side of the tripartite committee would meet with labor for one week to agree on a wage last Monday, June 3, 2024, in the heat of the impasse and the attendant consequences of the strike. Convinced, labor “relaxed” its work stoppage on Tuesday, June 4, 2024, approximately twenty-four hours following the walkout. Following that, the heads of the TUC and NLC met again with delegates from the federal government, the states, and the organized private sector.
The President additionally instructed Wale Edun, the Minister of Finance, to submit a model for a new minimum wage. The minister had called the labor demands “unaffordable” prior to the directive. The 36 state governors declared that labor’s demands could not be met. But on Friday, June 7, 2024, the administration and labor were unable to come to a consensus. While labor’s demand fell once more, from ₦494,000 to ₦250,000, the government promised workers ₦62,000 and added ₦2,000 to its initial ₦60,000. The President received the reports from both parties and is likely to decide and send an executive bill to the National Assembly for approval of a new minimum wage bill that the President would sign into law.
