Minimum Wage: Tinubu meets Labour leaders today

There are indications that Presi­dent Bola Tinubu will meet with members of the organised labour, comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), today in furtherance of his consultations over a new minimum wage.

Sources within the presidency confirmed that the time for the meeting has been fixed for 4p.m.

Recall that President Tinubu has already taken receipt of the report of the tripartite committee set up to review the existing mini­mum wage of N30,000.

While the Federal Government proposed to pay N62,000 as mini­mum wage, the organised labour is insisting on N250,000.

Though the matter came up for deliberations at a recent Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, President Tinubu was reported to have stepped down the matter for want of time to consult further with other stakeholders.

It is not clear whether the pres­ident will make a pronouncement on a new wage benchmark but he has promised to send a bill on a new national minimum wage to the Na­tional Assembly.

President of TUC, Comrade Festus Osifo, confirmed this to re­porters on Wednesday.

“The president has invited the organised labour (NLC, TUC) for consultation tomorrow (Thursday, July 11),” he said in a short text message.

On Tuesday, Osifo told reporters at the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) Women Commis­sion’s maiden annual convention in Abuja that organised labour was optimistic that the govern­ment would approve what can be described as a living wage for the poorest of the poor.

He had also written off insinu­ations from some quarters that the negotiations for a new minimum wage was dead.

He had said, “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 reach out 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. Of course, we still insist on the N250,000 benchmark as the ideal minimum wage”.

Osifo further said labour ex­pects that “what will be submitted to the National Assembly will actu­ally be a minimum wage that will cater for the poorest of the poor.”

Progress on a new national minimum wage appeared to have stalled after President Tinubu said he needed to consult with stake­holders before sending the bill for enactment.

In his June 12 broadcast, the president said an executive bill would be sent to the National As­sembly to formalise the new min­imum wage agreement.

Osifo said some level of “inter­nal work” was ongoing before the bill would be submitted in “ear­nest.”

He said: “The minimum wage negotiations cannot be dead.

“The 2019 minimum wage (that has expired) took about two years to see the light of day. We started the negotiations in 2017.

Source: Independent.ng