The Organised Labour, comprising the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), has firmly stated it will reject any minimal increase to the current ₦60,000 offer proposed by the tripartite committee.
The declaration was made by TUC President, Festus Osifo during an appearance on Channels Television’s “Politics Today” programme on Tuesday evening.
This statement comes shortly after Organised Labour decided to suspend its nationwide strike, which had commenced at 12:01 am on Monday, causing widespread disruptions across various economic sectors.
The strike was a response to what the unions described as an inadequate handling of wage negotiations by the government.
During the interview, Osifo emphasized that while the strike had been paused to facilitate further negotiations, the labour unions would not settle for a nominal increase.
“Our decision to suspend the strike was in good faith to allow for more constructive dialogue. However, let it be clear that any token addition to the ₦60,000 initially proposed will not be acceptable to us,” Osifo explained.
The ongoing negotiations seek to establish a new minimum wage that reflects the current economic realities faced by Nigerian workers.
“At the meeting on Friday, they (the tripartite committee) said they would not add anything more to the ₦60,000 but in the meeting of yesterday (Monday), Mr President was able to commit to doing what is more than ₦60,000,” Osifo said.
When asked whether Labour would accept a few thousand naira additions to the last offer of the tripartite committee which has the Federal Government, states and the Organised Private Sector as members, the TUC boss said, “No, we also told them that it’s not that we’d get to the table and you start adding ₦1, ₦2, ₦3000 as they were doing and we got some good guarantees here and there that they would do something good.”
Osifo said the Organised Labour is not fixated on ₦494,000 as the new minimum wage for workers in the country but the tripartite committee must show seriousness and offer workers something economically realistic in tandem with current inflationary pressures.