Mohammed Shosanya
President of the Trade Union Congress, Festus Osifo,says the struggle for a new national minimum wage in the country is still alive.
Osifo,who disclosed this in Abuja on Tuesday,said the Federal Government is still discussing with all relevant stakeholders imcluding the Nigerian Governors Forum, Local Government Administrators as well as the Organised Private Sector and Labour Unions.
He noted that both unions still insists on the N250,000 demand it made to government which was part of the recommendations submitted to the President by the Presidential Tripartite Committee on new national minimum wage.
Osifo,who referred to the existing minimum wage of N30,000 which took two years to be negotiated,assured that the Tripartite Committee has made appreciable progress since January 2024 when negotiations started.
He added:”Minimum wage negotiations cannot be dead, you know when we started this conversation you asked us that in 2017 if you remember we started the minimum wage that was signed in 2019, it took about two years to see the light of day. We promised you when we started in January that we will ensure this one is fast tracked for us not to be in the conundrum that we were as at 2019 which took two years.
“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 reachout and conversations.
“So that let 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. Ofcourse we still insist on the N250,000 benchmark as idea minimum wage”.
