Labour to meet over minimum wage, may resume strike Tuesday

Labour Union have said the organs of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) would meet to decide on the resumption of a nationwide strike if the Federal Government fails to act on its demands by Tuesday.

Assistant General Secretary of the NLC, Chris Onyeka, said this on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief show on Monday.

“The Federal Government and the National Assembly have the call now,” Onyeka said. “It is not our call. Our demand is there for them (the government) to look at and send an Executive Bill to the National Assembly, and for the National Assembly to look at what we have demanded, the various fact of the law, and then come up with a National Minimum Act that meets our demands.

“If that does not meet our demand, we have given the Federal Government a one-week notice to look at the issues and that one week expires tomorrow (Tuesday). If after tomorrow, we have not seen any tangible response from the government, the organs of the Organised Labour will meet to decide on what next.”

On what the decision of Labour would be should the government insist on ₦62,000, Onyeka said, what Labour said was clear on the issue.

“It’s like putting a pause on it. So, if you put a pause on something and that organs that govern us as trade unions decide that we should remove that pause, it means that we go back to what was in existence before.”

Onyeka stated that Labour would not accept any ₦62,000 or ₦100,000 as the minimum wage for Nigerian workers, insisting on ₦250,000, labour’s latest demand at the last meeting of the Tripartite Committee on Minimum Wage on Friday.

“We have never considered accepting ₦62,000 or any other wage that we know is below what we know is able to take Nigerian workers home. We will not negotiate a starvation wage,” Onyeka said.

“We have never contemplated ₦100,000 let alone of ₦62,000. We are still at ₦250,000, that is where we are, and that is what we considered enough concession to the government and the other social partners in this particular situation.

“We are not just driven by frivolities but the realities of the market place; realities of things we buy every day: bag of rice, yam, garri, and all of that.”