Labour may resume strike over new minimum wage

Labour may embark on an industrial action if the current state of affairs as regards the issue of consequential adjustment arising from the new national minimum wage of N30,000 remains same.

The union said it had commenced mobilisation of its members nationwide to prepare them for the next line of action.

A statement by the Trade Union Side (TUS) of the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council (JNPSNC) said the eight unions in the public service of the federal and state governments were alarmed by the current administration’s persistent efforts to derail the implementation of the new minimum wage.

The TUS Acting Chairman, Anchaver Simon, and Secretary, Alade Lawal, who urged President Muhammadu Buhari to act now, expressed regrets that since the committee set up by the government to work out the consequential adjustments arising from the N30,000 minimum wage started meeting, government had been coming up with one strange proposal or the other all with the intent of scuttling the implementation of the new pay.

According to them, as things are now, the government side was only prepared to pay peanuts to workers as adjustment under the pretext that it would soon be undertaking general salary review in the public service.

The labour leaders, who stated that the TUS had initially proposed that salaries for officers on Grade Level 01-17 should be adjusted accordingly to maintain the relativity that exists in the salary structure in the public service, regretted that the implication of government’s position was that the technical committee cannot go beyond what the government was pushing for, which is 9.5 per cent salary increase for officers on GL 07-14 and five per cent for those on GL 15-17.

“The implication of this is that government has a predetermined position and only called labour in to rubberstamp its hidden agenda.

“With this turn of event, it is quite clear now that some fifth columnists in this administration are hell bent on pushing the President to enter into a collision course with millions of Nigerian workers in the public service. This is very sad,” the union stated.