The leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress has claimed that the new ₦62,000 proposed by Bola Tinubu’s government is not acceptable.
This was revealed by Chris Onyeka, an Assistant General Secretary of the NLC, on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief which SaharaReporters monitored on Monday morning.
The Labour leader described the government’s offer as a “starvation wage”, insisting that the union would only agree to N250,000 as minimum wage considering the country’s economic realities currently.
He said, “Our position is very clear. 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.
“We have never contemplated ₦100,000 let alone ₦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 marketplace; realities of things we buy every day: bag of rice, yam, garri, and all of that.”
He mentioned that due to the failure of the government to meet their demand within the one week given as an ultimatum, the union was left with no other option but to resume the nationwide strike on Tuesday.
He continued, “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 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.”
When asked what the decision of organised labour would be should the government insist on ₦62,000, he said, “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 that organ that governs us as trade unions decides that we should remove that pause, it means that we go back to what was in existence before.”
