Labour Rejects N62,000 Proposed Minimum Wage, May Resume Strike Tuesday

The Organised Labour has rejected the N62,000 proposed new minimum wage by the federal government.

The unions said it will not accept any N62,000 or N100,000 “starvation wage” as the minimum wage for workers.

The union insisted on N250,000, being its latest demand at the last meeting of the Tripartite Committee on Minimum Wage on Friday, as the living wage for an average Nigerian worker.

Assistant General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Chris Onyeka made this known while fielding questions on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief show on Monday.

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Onyeka said the one week to the Federal Government last Tuesday would expire by midnight of Tuesday, June 11, 2024, adding that the unions may resume the paused industrial action.

According to him, “Our position is very clear. We have never considered accepting N62,000 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.

“We have never contemplated N100,000 let alone N62,000. We are still at N250,000, 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.

“The Federal Government and the National Assembly have the call now. 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 facts of the law, and then come up with a National Minimum Act that meets our demands.”

He continued: “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.

“It was clear what we said. We said we are relaxing a nationwide indefinite strike. It’s like putting a pause on it.

“So, if you put a pause on something and the 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.”