Textile union urges government to set up committee on new minimum wage

Organised labour has advised the Federal Government to immediately constitute the tripartite committee on the review of a new national minimum wage for workers in the country.

The General Secretary of Textile Workers Union, Issa Aremu, in a statement in Kaduna, explained that the prompt payment of the existing salaries by states and local government councils is a smart way of stimulating the nation’s economy.

He added: “Nigeria needs a wage-led economic recovery. The recent CBN report on the economy and to a large extent the latest report of National Bureau of Statistics observe that weak demand for goods is one of the
factors responsible for low capacity utilization of many private sector companies.
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“So, to overcome the economic crisis, workers whose wages buy basic goods and services must not only be paid on time but their wages must be increased. Nigeria cannot overcome recession with the existing miserable pay of workers and pensioners”.

He urged President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently put in place a tripartite committee that will review the existing grossly low minimum wage, saying, “the Nigerian workers have long been in depression, not just recession going by the crisis of compensation manifesting in salary arrears and collapse of wages caused by massive Naira devaluation and price inflation of close to 20 percent.