As the contentious issue of new minimum wage for Nigerian workers lingers, one of the two main labour centres in the country, Trade Union Congress (TUC), yesterday, appealed to President Bola Tinubu to hasten the process of transmission of the new minimum wage to the National Assembly and its subsequent signing into law.
The appeal by TUC came as the Federal Executive Council (FEC), yesterday, stepped down a memorandum on the report of the Tripartite Committee on New National Minimum Wage for further consultation.
Equally yesterday, the organised private sector, under the auspices of the Nigeria Employers Consultative Assembly (NECA), gave conditions for its acceptance of the N62,000 new minimum wage being proposed by the federal government.
Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, who disclosed the stepping down of the memo to newsmen after the FEC meeting presided by Tinubu, said this was done to enable the president to consult wider on the issue.
At the end of the tripartite committee's meeting on new national minimum wage recently, the government team and the organised private sector had offered N62,000 from the current N30,000, but organised labour, comprising Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and TUC, demanded N250,000 living wage.
But Idris explained that the council took the decision based on the fact that the issue of the national minimum wage was not just for the consideration of the federal government, but involved other stakeholders, like the state governments as well as the organised private sector.
He said the president needed to interact with other wage-paying entities to factor their contributions and circumstances into the executive bill on the matter that will be passed on to the National Assembly for passage into law.
Idris stated regarding the stepping down of the minimum wage memo, "I want to inform Nigerians here that FEC deliberated on that and the decision is that because the new national minimum wage is not just that of the federal government, it is an issue that involves the federal government, the state governments, local governments, and the organised private sector, and, of course, including the organised Labour.
"That memo was stepped down to enable Mr. President to consult further, especially with the state governors and the organised private sector, before he makes a presentation to the National Assembly, before an executive bill is presented to the National Assembly.
"So I want to state that on the new national minimum wage, Mr. President is going to consult further so that he can have an informed position because the new national minimum wage, like I said, is not just an issue of the federal government."
Idris said the president had studied the report of the tripartite committee on minimum wage and wanted to consult wider before a final submission would be made to the National Assembly.
However, TUC appealed to Tinubu to hasten the process of transmission of the new minimum wage to the National Assembly.
TUC stated that the expectation of organised labour was that the new minimum wage bill should be signed into law before July.
The union also urged the states and other employers of labour to start making plans on how they would absorb the additional expenditure after the approval of the new minimum wage.
President of TUC, Comrade Festus Osifo, made the assertions yesterday in Abuja, when he received top officials of the Kogi State government, led by Special Adviser to the Kogi State Governor on Labour Matters, Mr. Onuh Edoka, at the headquarters of the union.
Osifo said TUC expected the new minimum wage to be ready latest July. He said organised labour was already mobilising to enforce the payment of the new minimum wage state-by-state as soon as it was approved.
He stated, "We also call on the president, the National Assembly, and every stakeholder to expedite action in passing the new national minimum wage into law.
"As you are aware, we as labour, have submitted a report of N250,000 while government and the organised private sector have offered N62,000. Let all parties come together to resolve the differences and have a common front so that the president would be able to send the bill to the National Assembly for us to have a new national minimum wage."
On the categorisation of Kogi State as a defaulter in minimum wage payment, Osifo said TUC had clarified that the state was among the states paying the approved minimum wage.
He commended the Kogi State governor, Alhaji Usman Ododo, for achieving the feat of consistently paying workers' salaries as and when due since assumption of office in January this year.
Osifo, however, said organised Labour had gone beyond the payment of N30,000, saying expectations are that by early July, a new minimum wage Act would have been in place.
The TUC president said, "For both labour centres, what we are hoping is that on or before July we should have a new minimum wage that must have passed through the processes and assented to by the president, so that the plight of the workers will reduce drastically, so that the current economic challenges we are currently facing in the country will be ameliorated."
Osifo appealed to states to start preparations for the new minimum wage, including making savings, to be able bear the additional financial burden.
Earlier, Edoka said the newly appointed Kogi State officials, made up of former labour leaders in the state, were at the TUC headquarters to solicit the understanding and cooperation of its leadership for the new administration in Kogi State.
He stated that Kogi State had become a lot more labour-friendly now, adding that workers have benefited from a number interventions being implemented by Ododo.
Edoka said the era of frosty relations with workers was gone. He also listed some labour-friendly interventions already carried out under the present administration to include prompt payment of salaries to Kogi workers; payment of 100 per cent to pensioners at both the state and local government levels; implementation of 35 per cent hazard allowance to all categories of state health workers; and payment of six months Health Insurance Scheme for all state workers as take off for the workforce.
President of NLC, Joe Ajaero, had said organised labour was expecting Tinubu to reach out to members of the tripartite committee to harmonise the figure.
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Ajaero hinged his position on the fact that there was a stalemate at the end of the tripartite committee meeting.
In the meantime, speaking in an interview with journalists on the side-lines of a two-day national summit organised NECA, Director General of the association, Mr. Adewale Oyerinde, said one of the conditions given by NECA was that the new electricity tariff should be suspended.
Oyerinde said, " For us, we have said before, the N62,000 that the employees agreed to was a painful concession and it was based on some premises and three of those premises are that the new electricity tariff should be suspended, there should be an embargo on tax, and there should be no introduction of new tax."
He also said the National Assembly should drop plans to legislate on corporate social responsibility, adding that it would amount to another form of tax if businesses are compelled through legislation on what to deliver as social responsibility.
He said, "These are some of the conditions we gave for us to agree on the N62,000 minimum wage. NECA warned that if the minimum wage is set above N62,000, the federal government would have set the tone for non-compliance.
"You would have created a problem for the judiciary because all employers that are not satisfied have the right under the Act to go to the National Industrial Court. Imagine 1,000 or 5,000 employers going to the industrial court, how long will the court take to dispense the cases."
Adeniyi also stated that any figure above the N62,000 would lead to loss of jobs.
