NIGERIA MINIMUM WAGE RATE :N27,000 Approved By The Government Instead of N30,000

The organised labour on Tuesday, warned that nothing will deny Nigerian workers any Naira from the N30,000 agreed by the constitutionally empowered National Minimum Wage Tripartite Committee, as contained, in its report already submitted to President Muhammadu Buhari. o this end, the United Labour Congress (ULC) called on President Muhammadu Buhari, to immediately transmit a bill containing N30,000 minimum wage, which is the product of collective bargaining in the Tripartite Committee report to the National Assembly.

Following the approval of N27,000 by the National Council of State as the new national minimum wage on Tuesday, the ULC and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), swiftly rejected the figure, saying that the Council of State lacks the constitutional power to approve or recommend minimum wage.

“So, if the Council of State is talking about N27,000 or N30,000, they are just being advisory. The Council of State cannot recommend minimum wage. So, we are still expecting  President Muhammadu Buhari to transmit the product of the collective bargaining in the Tripartite Committee report to the National Assembly tomorrow.”

Rising from its Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting on Tuesday in Lagos, the statement said the ULC “rejects in its entirety the proposed N27,000 which is closely to the N30,000 agreed by the National Minimum Wage Tripartite Committee and which has since been submitted to the President.”

The statement, also signed by Comrade Ajaero, said: “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 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.”

He added: “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 randomly.”

The ULC warned: “We will however in the next few days in consultation with other Labour Centres 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.

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