The organised labour has maintained its demand for a N250,000 minimum wage as the meeting with President Bola Tinubu ended without a conclusive agreement.
Recall that Intel Region earlier reported that the leaders of organised labour, comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), engaged in consultation talks with Tinubu at the Presidential Villa on Thursday.
Speaking with State House Correspondents after the meeting, NLC President Joe Ajaero said labour leaders attended for discussion, not negotiation.
He said the meeting would continue next week.
Ajaero also stated that the positions of N250,000 for Labour and N62,000 for the Federal Government remain unchanged.
Trade Union Congress (TUC) President, Festus Osifo, noted that they discussed their position and that the President also made his remarks.
Talks for a new minimum wage for Nigerian workers have been ongoing for a while. The Minimum Wage Act of 2019, which set ₦30,000 as the minimum wage, expired in April 2024. The Act is reviewed every five years to address the contemporary economic demands of workers.
In January, Tinubu established a Tripartite Committee to negotiate a new minimum wage for workers. The committee includes representatives from Organised Labour, federal and state governments, and the Organised Private Sector.
However, the committee members failed to reach an agreement on a new realistic minimum wage for workers, leading labour to declare an indefinite industrial action on Monday, June 3, 2024. Businesses were paralysed as labour shut down airports, hospitals, the national grid, banks, the National Assembly, and state assemblies’ complexes.
The labour unions argued that the current minimum wage of N30,000 can no longer sustain the average Nigerian worker, urging the government to offer something economically realistic in line with current inflationary pressures and the effects of the removal of the petrol subsidy and unification of the forex windows.
Both the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) leadership resumed talks with representatives of the Federal Government, states, and the Organised Private Sector.
On Friday, June 7, 2024, both sides (labour and the government) still failed to reach an agreement. While labour dropped its demand from ₦494,000 to ₦250,000, the government increased its offer from ₦60,000 to ₦62,000.
Both sides submitted their reports to the President, who is expected to make a decision and send an executive bill to the National Assembly to pass a new minimum wage bill to be signed into law.
