…No agreement on new minimum wage yet” – NLC
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has said he was among those who took the risk to midwife the birth of democracy in the country.
Tinubu, who stated this while addressing Nigerians in a nationwide broadcast yesterday, as part of programmes to mark the 2024 Democracy Day, added that he is now a direct and obvious beneficiary of the fruits of those historic efforts.
The President noted that the Federal Government and Organised Labour engaged in constructive negotiation on the new minimum wage.
He said, amongst others: “We have negotiated in good faith and with open arms with Organised Labour on a new national minimum wage. We shall soon send an executive bill to the National Assembly to enshrine what has been agreed upon as part of our law for the next five years or less”.
However, in a swift reaction to the President’s speech, the NLC said he failed to give them the much expected gift on June 12.
Ag. President of NLC, Comrade Prince Adewale Adeyanju, who reacted on behalf of the union, said the President may have accurately recounted parts of our democratic journey’s history, but that it is evident that he has been misinformed regarding the outcome of the wage negotiation process.
He said they expected the President to harmonize the two figures submitted to him by the Tripartite Committee in favour of workers and masses, stating that it would have been a fitting Democracy Day gift.
According to Adeyanju, the NLC would have expected that the advisers of the President would have told him that we neither reached any agreement with the federal government and the employers on the base figure for a National Minimum Wage, nor on its other components. Our demand still remains N250,000, and we have not been given any compelling reasons to change this position which we consider a great concession by Nigerian workers during the tripartite negotiation process.
“We are therefore surprised at the submission of Mr. President over a supposed agreement. We believe that he may have been misled into believing that there was an agreement with the NLC and TUC”.
