Organised labour has raised doubts over federal government’s commitment to the implementation of the new N30,000 minimum wage. President of Trade Union Congress, TUC, Quadri Olaleye, threatened that organised labour may be forced to take industrial action over the delay in the payment of the new minimum wage.
Speaking to reporters in Lagos yesterday, Olaleye said workers had thought that consequential adjustment on the minimum wage would be negotiated openly.
“From the look of things, it appears the Federal Government is not committed to implementing the new minimum wage arrangement going by the way its representatives in the committee, set up to negotiate the consequential adjustment arising from the new minimum wage, are handling the negotiation,” Olaleye said. He also said that the organised labour has been considerate by lowering its initial demand for increasing the salaries of officers on Grade Level (GL) 07 to 17 by 66.66% as the rate at which the minimum wage was increased but the FG side is only offering 9.5% for GL 07 to 14 officers and 5% for those on GL 15 to 17. He said: “As it stands now, we may be forced to go to the trenches. “We sincerely hope that the government will act fast and direct its representatives to return to the negotiation table with a more realistic mandate that will be beneficial to workers who have had to wait for almost a decade to get something meaningful added to their emoluments.”
This news first appeared in FirstNewsng.
