Mohammed Shosanya
The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), the umbrella organisation of all employers in the Organised Private Sector (OPS),says workers’ productivity should determine the minimum wage their employers pay them.
Its Director General,Adewale Oyerinde,who disclosed this at a forum with Labour Writers Association of Nigeria,LAWAN,on Tuesday,said the development will provide justifiable ground for workers to earn deserving wages.
According to him,increased productivity on the part of workers would also add value to the nation’s Commonwealth and enable the country fix its economic challenges headlong.
He disclosed that his association‘painfully’ agreed to pay the N62,000 national minimum wage following deliberation.
He said:”We cannot play the ostrich and behave as if companies are not closing down or reducing their capacity utilisation. We cannot play the ostrich.
“And for us in the private sector, the reality is this. With the current reality that we face, the current challenges that we face, we feel N62,000, we painfully, and I must emphasise that, the team of the organised private sector painfully agreed to that N62,000 based on certain conditions that government will also take into account,” he explained.
He told reporters that the matter has now left the hands of the tripartite committee, explaining that everyone is now awaiting the decision of President Bola Tinubu.
He urged the Federal Government to consider reliefs for Nigerians in the face of the adjustment in the national minimum wage in Nigeria.
He said the recent increase in electricity tariff will erode minimum wage being planned for workers,who are also gasping for survival in the country.
Describing the national minimum wage controversy as ‘distraction’, Oyerinde said Convention 131 of the International Labour Organization was very clear about how best to go about fixing workers’ wages.
He lamented that the country is not doing enough on platform economy,just transition and global economic conversation, which will open Nigeria’s economy to quality patronage.
He stated that the association would continue to play robust role in labour and economic sphere in Nigeria with a view to promoting industrialization
