By Bimbola Oyesola
This may sound strange, more-so when the new Minimum Wage has come into force for almost a year now. But those affected are not just private sector employees, but workers in government agencies and parastatals.
According to the President of the Senior Staff Association of Statutory Corporations and Government Owned Companies (SSASCGOC), who doubles as Deputy President of Trade Union Congress (TUC), Kayode Alakija, workers in these leagues are still living on N30,000 Minimum Wages.
Alakija who lamented that the plight of Nigerians have become worse despite the new minimum wage of N70,000 due to inflation,
advocated for a dynamic model that uses economic variables—like inflation rate, cost of living, and disposable income—to automatically adjust minimum wage.
He also bares his mind on the impacts the government policies are having on workers and other sundry national issues as it affects workers wellbeing.
Excerpt:
Condition of workers over the past year
Over the last one year, Nigerian workers have really been at the receiving end. The minimum wage, as it stands, is not commensurate with the current inflationary rate. Even the amount announced by the government is not implemented uniformly, as some workers claim they haven’t received it due to lack of official circulars.
While workers have seen a slight increase in their take-home pay, the cost of living—food, transportation, school fees—have skyrocketed at supersonic speed. The disparity means that workers are worse off than before. Most of us now survive on borrowing.
Specifically, how has your sector fared?
My sector, being largely made up of government workers, has been equally affected. While a few members are in the private sector and may be able to negotiate better conditions, the reality is that everyone buys from the same market and pays the same high costs.
Our so-called “take-home” pay no longer takes us home. A lot of us go on borrowing to survive.
Reviewing minimum wage in response to inflation rates
Absolutely! Nigeria needs to adopt a dynamic model that uses economic variables—like inflation rate, cost of living, and disposable income—to automatically adjust minimum wage. Countries like the UK and US have systems that do this, and it’s high time we developed ours.
Nigeria’s model of negotiating minimum wage every 3 years is not in the best interest of anyone. If you look at the current reality, you would even see that Nigerian are losing rather than improving.
Currently, our system is static and politicized. When labour demands a higher wage—say, N600,000—it’s seen as outrageous, but that figure is a reflection of the economic reality. For example, N30,000 minimum wage once equated to over $120, now N70,000 is worth less than $40.
Its sad that the government feels they are doing the workers a favour by just giving them whatever they deem fit rather than what they deserve in light of the current economy.
Employers relationship with workers under harsh economic conditions
Employers, both public and private, are under pressure. The private sector often justifies stagnant wages by citing multiple taxes and increased input costs. Yet, they adjust their product prices to reflect those changes, so why not workers’ salaries?
Labour is a very important part of production, but unfortunately, many employers see labour as the easiest area to cut costs. They strangulate workers, giving them peanuts and expect to boost their profits as the company.
In fairness though, private employers are still doing better than government ones, but overall, workers are struggling.
Impacts of economic situation on membership strength / Challenges facing the union
The economy is biting hard. We’re losing members daily to retirement with no replacements, and check-off dues are dropping. Financially, the union is constrained.
Even organizing meetings has become expensive. We have had to resort to virtual meetings, which isn’t our usual method, just to manage costs. This impacts on union cohesion and mobilisation.
Apart from declining membership and finances, we’re dealing with a government that doesn’t honour agreements. It makes it seem as though the union has no direction. Negotiations are ignored or reversed, which erodes public trust in unions. When we call for strikes, people hesitate because they doubt the effectiveness.
The government behaves as though it has captured every sector, including civil society. This suppresses public agitation and frustrates labour’s efforts.
Impacts of government policies, tariff hikes, fuel deregulation on Nigerian workers
What I have observed with the Nigerian government is that “they rob Peter to pay Paul’ — they are literally robbing workers to pay for the shortfall in the economy.
Government policies have worsened the plight of workers. After proposing a N70,000 wage, they increased electricity tariffs by over 200 percent and telecoms charges by more than 100 percent. Combined with the earlier effects of fuel price hikes and currency floatation, the cumulative burden is overwhelming.
These policies are anti-people. The government keeps saying we’ll soon see the benefits, but the average worker is yet to feel anything positive.
Workers casualisation
We don’t currently have a major issue with casualization in our sector, though it’s becoming more common in other parts of the public sector. It’s something we’re keeping an eye on.?
Compliance with the payment of the New Minimum Wage
In my sector, I would say government has not even started to talk of compliance. Okay. We have some public institutions as our members that are not called civil servants—parastatals and some other Government owned companies.
And you discover that of all these agencies, no circular has been issued as to them benefiting from the minimum wage. National Incomes and Salaries and Wages Commission said until they have a circular.
So every agency now is struggling to apply for salary adjustments. This means that most of the agencies in our own sector are still earning what they were earning before the minimum wage announcement.
Not all Nigerian workers are earning minimum wage. That’s the implication.
Yeah, we are on it. We are talking to government. We really want to know what is the fate of these people in the agencies and the parastatals. So we are talking and we are following up.
Orosanye Report played out on your sector?
We heard that government plan to implement it. Some of my the agencies under us are affected. Some have been slated to merge, some have also been slated to absorb all others. But one thing is this. Each time they come up with implementation strategies, we always attend meetings.
But as of today, we know that this particular government have said they are going to implement it. But nothing concrete is on the ground. Because for those that will be affected, provisions must have been made for them. I don’t think that was done last year and nobody has really spoken about it this year. So we shouldn’t be the ones bringing it up. That’s why we don’t want to really comment much on it.
Workers’ demand from government
The key thing we should be demanding from this government is there should be human face in governance. You should listen to the plight of workers. And put in policies that will reverse the hardship we are experiencing now.
Policies that can bring down the prices of goods. Where are the price regulatory boards of those years? Don’t forget, I know that even us Nigerians, we have our own problem. Because if any government policy is effected and something is increased marginally, Nigerians on the streets will say because of that, put their own increase on whatever they are selling, astronomically.
But if we have price regulatory boards that is effective and functioning, they should be able to determine what the price of items should be. And whoever is selling at outrageous prices, they should be able to bring such a person to book and also regulate. So we need regulatory agencies that will be in charge of commodities.
Government also needs to encourage people, especially farmers. If you are able to solve issue of food, if there is food security, I think Nigerian workers will be glad. What we are earning now, the bulk of it goes into feeding. Nobody is even thinking of any other thing. Feeding and transportation.
So they have promised they are bringing the CNG buses. They said they have brought in some. But they have not started operating and it has not really affected what transportation is in this country. So government needs to fastrack some of these things so it can ease the plight of the workers and make life easier for everybody.
How do you rate this administration?
To me, they are putting in place policies that have not really seen the practicality of it. To me it is more of a rhetorical thing. Maybe when we begin to see the benefit, we will know how practical some of these policies are. But as long as it has not translated to easing the life of Nigerians, I don’t see any improvement in the system.