Organised labour has said it will not accept any unfavourable figure the Federal Government offers as the new minimum wage.
The president of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Festus Osifo, said this on Channels Television’s breakfast programme, The Morning Brief on Friday.
President Bola Tinubu is expected to send an executive bill to the National Assembly for legislative action but he said he will only approve a new minimum wage that the Federal Government can afford.
Osifo reacting said that Labour will not pre-empt the President but they are trying everything possible to make Tinubu consider the N250,000 they presented as the new minimum wage rather than the N62,000 which the organised private sector and the government proposed.
The TUC President added that the labour union will still approach the lawmakers and push them to do much more if Tinubu eventually offers an unfavourable figure.
“The work of the labour leaders will not end until the Minimum Wage Act 2024 becomes law,” Osifo said.
“It is premature to predict what labour will do if what is passed is not acceptable to us at the end of the day.”
Osifo further said that no figure is sacrosanct as there is always room for adjustments on the part of all the negotiating parties.
“What we said is that for us when we give figures, there is always a room to meander, there is always a room for us to do some adjustment here and there,” he said.
“So, there is no figure that is sacrosanct, there is no figure that is cast in stone that both parties will be fixated on.
“One of the reasons that we went on industrial action the last time was because when it got to N60,000, they told us that a kobo cannot even join the N60,000, that they cannot even add one naira to it.
“So, that was one of the reasons that led to that industrial action beyond the fact that there were also delays.”
The leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and TUC had declared a national strike following their failure to reach an agreement with the Federal Government on a new minimum wage.
Organised labour had demanded a new minimum wage of N497,000 for Nigerian workers, which they reduced to N494,000.
However, after several meetings, the Federal Government proposed the sum of N60,000 but the Labour leaders appear to be dwelling more on N250,000.
