Minimum Wage: NLC Issues Fresh Warning To State, Federal Governments

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has urged the federal and state governments to speed up the process and implement the new minimum wage of N30,000 to Nigerian workers.

This is as workers across the country eagerly anticipate the implementation of the new minimum wage which President Buhari had severally expressed the commitment of his administration to implementing.

The federal government has already set up a minimum wage implementation committee to work out the modality for payment while some states have also constituted a negotiation team to work on the new minimum wage regime.

Recall President Muhammadu Buhari signed the N30, 000 new Minimum Wage Act on May 18, 2019, after both chambers of the National Assembly had passed the bill.

The General Secretary of the NLC, Mr. Esom Peter Esom, in a chat with ThisDay said there is a need to quicken the pace in finalizing modalities for payment of the new minimum wage and dealing with arrears.

He also said there is no specific timeline for the negotiations, noting that the NLC is, however, ready to intervene should the need arise.

“No, the only thing is that we expect negotiations to be concluded fast because allowing it to drag unnecessarily for too long will bring another problem of accumulated arrears.”

“There is a team made up civil service based-unions joint negotiating council which is negotiating the consequential aspect of the new minimum wage. We have not received a report from them but we know that they are yet to conclude their work,” he said.

He revealed that contrary to insinuations of a deadlock in the negotiations, Esom said although there may be disagreeable areas, negotiations are still in progress.