The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in the South-east have made different proposals for the new minimum wage for workers in the country....CONTINUE READING
Both the NLC and the TUC made the proposals in Enugu during the South-east zonal hearing on Thursday organised by the Tripartite Committee on National Minimum Wage.
Speaking on behalf of the NLC in the region, the Chairperson of the Enugu State Chapter of the NLC, Fabian Nwigbo, said the value of N30,000 minimum wage which was approved in 2019 had been battered by inflation and worsening economic hardship.
Mr Nwigbo contended that Nigerian workers remain the least paid in the entire West Africa. “Rice, Garri and other food items are now high and minimum wage is still N30,000. So we’re asking the leaders to consider the plight of Nigerians.
“In a family of six, their breakfast cannot be anything less than N2,000 which translates to about N300,000 per month. If you include housing, social activities and other bills, one would be looking at over N500,000 per month. So it should be N540,000 per month as minimum wage,” he said.
The NLC chairperson argued that minimum wage determination should remain on the exclusive list and appealed that local and state governments should always comply with the wage directives.
“Our representatives should impeach any governor that violates the law and pensioners should be beneficiaries of the new wage,” Mr Nwigbo said.
TUC differs. But speaking on behalf of his colleagues in the South-east, the Chairperson of the Enugu State Chapter of the TUC, Ben Asogwa, said the need to increase the minimum had become imperative considering the economic situation in Nigeria.
Mr Asogwa said TUC members could not continue to bear the brunt of poor pay and stressed that five years were adequate to review the 2019 minimum wage, adding that they had proposed that the wage should be reviewed within two years.
“We are also saying that the law should reflect that any governor who is not ready to pay the minimum wage law should vacate his office and not the fine of N250,000 as recommended by the law,” he said.
On the proposal for the new minimum wage, the TUC chairperson said: “TUC is looking forward to the possibility of implementation of the wage and we can’t give a different proposal from what the national leadership of the TUC has made and so we affirm that the least we can take (as the new minimum wage) is N447,000 given every economic index.”
He said the South-east stands on the new proposed minimum wage and would be expecting President Bola Tinubu to approve the proposal.
In January, President Tinubu inaugurated a 37-member national minimum wage committee with a mandate to recommend a new minimum wage for the country.
The committee held public hearings simultaneously in all six geo-political zones in the country on Thursday to seek inputs from the public on a new minimum wage structure.
The minimum wage in the country is subject to review every five years, based on extant laws. The current N30,000 minimum wage became effective in 2019.
The new minimum wage implementation is expected to begin in April this year according to labour leaders…CONTINUE READING>>
