Labour firm on N250,000 minimum wage as Tinubu calls for talks

From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja

This is as President Bola Tinubu is scheduled to meet with the Organised Labour in Abuja on Thursday to further discuss the new minimum wage for Nigerian workers.

The Spokesperson of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Benson Upah confirmed to DailySun via a phone call that the President has summoned both the leadership of NLC and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) to the meeting, which will be held at the Aso Villa in Abuja.

Although he said the aim of the meeting is yet to be known to the Unions, DailySun gathered that Tinubu is expected to address the government and private sector’s ₦62,000 minimum wage proposal, as well as the Organised Labour’s ₦250,000 demand.

Upah said: “If the meeting has anything to do with the minimum wage, our position on N250,000 will stand, even as the cost of living has moved up.

“But it is not for us to pre-empt what the conversation will be all about. It is the person that invites you that will  tell you why they are inviting you. So we will honour the invitation, and  have an honest, frank and reasonable conversation. And we also expect the government to operate in the same mode.”

He lamented that hardship being faced by citizens in the country due to the current economic situation, adding that labour has been considerate and patriotic

According to the Spokeperson, “We have been considerate and patriotic, but nonetheless we have been flexible too. The situation has been tough for Nigerians.

“Many people are really under the effect of the increasing tariff, the energy tariff, the exchange rate, the interest rate, and everything. Life has been very mean. So we would want, Mr. President, to take all of these into consideration.

“Particularly in light of the fact that he had promised a living wage, even when the situation was not one tenth as bad as it is now. We need to live.

We need to live in this country.”

Earlier, the President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Festus Osifo, had assured that labour was actively working behind closed doors to push the Federal Government to announce a new minimum wage soon.

Osifo, who spoke at the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) Women Commission maiden Annual Convention in Abuja on Tuesday, also said that labour is still insisting on the N250,000 benchmark as the ideal minimum wage.

According to him,  “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.

“We promised you when we started in January (this year) that we will ensure this one is fast – tracked for us not to be in the conundrum that we were in 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 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.”