By Uche Amunike
The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has insisted that the N250,000 benchmark suggested by organized labor still remains the ideal Nigerian minimum wage for workers in the country.
This disclosure was made by the TUC President, Festus Osifo, Tuesday, at the maiden annual convention of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Women Commission which was held in Abuja.
Osifo further stated that the TUC and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) were already meeting with officials of the administration to reach an agreement on the minimum wage
During the convention, which was themed ‘The Dynamic Woman: Navigating Challenges in a Constantly Evolving World’ , Osifo stated that negotiations on the new minimum wage has not been abandoned, but rather, Labour and the government were fine-tuning the matter.
His words: ‘The minimum wage negotiations cannot be dead. The 2019 minimum wage that has expired took about two years to see the light of day. We started the negotiations in 2017. We promised you when we started in January this year that we will ensure this one is fast tracked for us not to be in the conundrum that we wear in 2019 which took two years.’
He averred that the Nigerian minimum wage for workers was receiving attention and that the president wanted to have further consultations before submitting it to the National Assembly.
Recall that the federal government and Organized Private Sector already agreed on N62,000 as the new minimum wage. However, Labour insisted that the benchmark will remain pegged at N250,000
Hear him: ‘So where we are today, we submitted the divergent position in June, when we did that you know clearly that Mr President came out to say that he wanted to consult across board which is the governors, Local Government chairmen, organised private sector and labour, so we are doing some level of reach-out and conversations.’
‘So that what will be submitted to the National Assembly will actually be a minimum wage that will cater for the poorest of the poor, so for the fact that in the media we are not shouting, we are doing some level of internal work so that this bill will be submitted in earnest soon. We still insist on the N250,000 benchmark as ideal minimum wage.’
Meanwhile, President Tinubu will meet with organized labour today, Thursday, to nip the issues delaying the approval of the Nigerian minimum wage for Nigerian workers in the bud, once and for all.
A source from the labor union informed newsmen that the president already invited the leadership of the NLC and the TUC to the meeting which will be held at the Presidential Villa.
According to the source, the president intends to find a way to reach a common ground with labour.
The NLC president, Joe Ajaero, on his part, condemned the suffering and neglect being experienced by retired workers in the country. He shed light on the money allegedly being owed in pension arrears to the tune of N260 billion by the federal government, with federal Parastatals accounting for an extra N40 billion.
He maintained that many Nigerian workers are afraid of what will become of them after they retire because of the lack of security being offered them upon retirement. He added that under the present scheme, retirement is more like a death sentence for many retirees and resultantly has a lot of consequences for the behaviour of workers in active service.
