Minimum wage struggle not over – Organised Labour

President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Festus Osifo, has waived off criticisms that the struggle for a new national minimum wage may have died and forgotten by the labour leaders.

While reacting to the insinuations, Osifo said that the Federal Government is still having conversations with all relevant stakeholders cutting across the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, local government administrators as well as the organised private sector and labour unions.

Osifo noted that both unions still insist on the N250, 000 demands it made to the government which was part of the recommendations submitted to the president by the Presidential Tripartite Committee on New National Minimum Wage.

He made reference to the existing minimum wage of N30, 000 which took two years to be negotiated, assuring that the Tripartite Committee has made appreciable progress since January 2024 when negotiations started.

“Minimum wage negotiations cannot be dead, you know when we started this conversation you asked us that in 2017 if you remember we started the mini­mum wage that was signed in 2019, it took about two years to see the light of day. We promised you when we started in January that we will ensure this one is fast tracked for us not to be in the conundrum that we were as at 2019 which took two years.

“So where we are today, we submitted the divergent position in June, when we did that you know clearly that Mr President came out to say that he wanted to consult across board which is the governors, local government chairmen, organised private sec­tor and labour, so we are doing some level of reach-out and con­versations.

“So that what will be sub­mitted to the National Assem­bly will actually be a minimum wage that will cater for the poorest of the poor. So for the fact that in the media we are not shouting, we are doing some lev­el of internal work so that this bill will be submitted in earnest soon. Of course, we still insist on the N250,000 benchmark as ideal minimum wage”.