The Federal Government and the organized private sector have raised their offer for the new minimum wage to N62,000 from the previous N60,000 after many hours of talks on Friday.
However, the N250,000 that organized labor is recommending is a change from their previous N494,000. This concludes, after several months of discussion, the tripartite committee appointed by the federal government to determine the new minimum wage. President Tinubu will receive the proposals and is anticipated to present an executive bill to the National Assembly for consideration by lawmakers.
As the tripartite committee that was established in January of this year draws to a close, the focus now moves to President Tinubu’s table and the National Assembly’s table after that. Although the Federal Government, organized labor, and the business sector all agreed that the N30,000 current minimum pay is unsustainable given the nation’s current economic conditions, deciding on a new minimum wage amount has long proven to be challenging.
Although labor felt the N60,000 offer was inconsiderate, the government and organized private sector thought labor’s suggested N494,000 was outrageous. Following a labor ultimatum that ended on May 31, the unions went on strike on June 3 and closed down companies all around the country.
However, as talks continued on Tuesday, the Federal Government pledged to raise the minimum wage to a value greater than N60,000, leading to the suspension of the action. The strike was put on hold to allow for the restart of talks, which has gone on till this evening.
We will not accept a pitiful sum beyond N60,000.
It remains to be seen whether the latest proposal, which the government and organized private sector have only added N2,000 to the N60,000 that labor had before rejected, would be approved given that the workers had earlier sworn not to accept any further cuts from the government. Festus Osifo, the President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), made this statement on Channels Television’s Politics Today show on Tuesday, just hours after the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the TUC, collectively known as Organised Labour, called off their industrial action, which had begun at 12:01 am on Monday.
“They (the tripartite committee) said they would not add anything more to the ₦60,000 at the meeting on Friday, but Mr. President was able to commit to doing what is more than ₦60,000 in the meeting yesterday (Monday),” Osifo stated. The TUC chief responded, “No, we also told them that it’s not that we’d get to the table and you start adding ₦1, ₦2, ₦3,000 as you were doing and we got some good guarantees here and there that they would do something good,” when asked if Labour would accept a few thousand naira additions to the tripartite committee’s final offer.
We are unable to pay.
The 36 state governors, meantime, have declared that the federal government’s proposed N60,000 minimum wage is unworkable and unsustainable. According to a statement made by the Forum’s Acting Director of Media Affairs and Public Relations, Mrs. Halima Ahmed, many states will use their whole monthly allotment from the federation account to pay employee salaries if permitted to fly. The governors urged the tripartite committee members to reach a consensus on a minimum wage that would be equitable and long-term.
