Ayanboade Kehinde
The United Labour Congress (ULC) has rejected the new minimum wage approved by the National Council of State on behalf of the Federal Government.
ULC said the decision is unfortunate because the council unilaterally approved N27000 as minimum wage without consultation with other stakeholders.
According to a statement signed by National President of ULC, Joe Ajaero, and made available to the National insight today,
it stated that “the emerging news of the unfortunate decision of the federal government through the National Council of State to unilaterally propose N27,000 as the new National Minimum Wage is shocking and goes against the grain of all known traditions and practices of Industrial Relations especially as it concerns National Minimum Wage setting framework.”
ULC “rejected in its entirety the proposed N27,000 which is contrary to the N30,000 agreed by the National Minimum Wage Tripartite Committee and which has since been submitted to the President.
“We state that the National Council of State in a National Minimum Wage setting mechanism is an aberration. It is also important that we make it clear that the National Council of State does not have powers to approve, confirm, affirm or accept any figure as the new National Minimum Wage. What they have pretended to have done is therefore without any force of law, standards or other known practices of Industrial Relations the world over.”
It stated further that it was an attempt by the federal government to segregate between the federal workers and state workers.
“It is a mockery of the essence and principle behind the setting of a National Minimum Wage to attempt to segregate it between Federal Workers and State Workers. We want to state that workers are workers everywhere whether at the Federal Level or at the State Level. They all have the same challenges; go to the same market, same schools and much more they suffer the same fate. You cannot, therefore, pay them differently, it stated.
“We will however in the next few days in consultation with other Labour Centers if they are still in the struggle for a just national minimum wage take steps to ensure that the interests of Nigerian workers as it concerns the National Minimum Wage are protected.
“We urge the President to disregard the pronouncement of the National Council of State as it ridicules the statutes and principles governing the nation. The only honourable path he should tread is to transmit the N30,000 figure as agreed by the Tripartite Committee and even the President on the day of submission of the Committee’s report. We will not accept the use of any cover of state to jettison the collective will of Nigerian workers and the trade union movement.
“Once again, we remind the President that he promised Nigerian workers that he was going to transmit the N30,000 as agreed by the Tripartite Committee to the National Assembly for passage into Law. He should not allow himself to be seen as a President who does not keep to his words. We hold him to that agreement and there is no other thing that would be acceptable to Nigerian workers except the N30,000 arrived at through the Tripartite process,” it concluded.
