The implementation proposal of the Federal Government for the N30,000 new minimum wage has been rejected by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
The FG had last month set up a negotiation committee, comprising representatives of the government and those of the labour unions, headed by the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Winifred Oyo-Ita.
The members met twice last week with the enlarged membership collapsed into one technical committee of six members each from both sides, but it was unable to meet the four-week deadline to submit its report.
One of the labour representatives explained that they couldn’t have agreed with the FG because the government’s current position on the consequential adjustment was favourable to workers.
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He said labour decided to be careful in reaching an agreement based on what happened when minimum wage was last increased and also to avoid being blackmailed by the FG.
He said, “We are monitoring the negotiations between our representatives and government. There is likely to be some challenges which is normal. The government negotiating team is looking at what the government can pay conveniently, but labour is also looking at what will be good for workers to avoid a situation where workers found themselves when the minimum wage was last increased.
“What happened then was that government came up with a block figure and out of poor negotiations because of insufficient time, a paltry sum was spread on workers’ salaries, translating into about N900 increase monthly.”