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From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), yesterday, walked out of a meeting with the Federal Government over the latter’s offer of N60,000 for workers as a new minimum wage, which is up from their previous offer of N57,000.
Last week, the Federal Government and the Organised Private Sector (OPS) put forward initial proposals of N48,000 and N54,000, both of which were also turned down by the labour centres.
The unions insisted on N615,000 as a living wage for workers in the country, before later adjusting it to N494,000.
The negotiations remained deadlocked, with the TUC and NLC arguing that the current N30,000 minimum wage was inadequate and that not all governors were complying with it.
The NLC President, Joe Ajaero, criticised the government’s proposal, describing it as insufficient to meet the needs of workers and highlighting the economic disparity between the public officials and the working class.
“It is still not substantial compared to what we need to make a family move. The economy of the workers is totally destroyed. In fact, the workers don’t have any economy. I think there are two economies in the country; the economy of the bourgeoisie and the economy of the workers. I think we have to harmonise this so that we can have a meeting point,” Ajaero stated.
