Labour rejects ₦100,000 Starvation Wage, says one-week grace period ends Tuesday

The Organised Labour on Monday said it won’t accept ₦100,000 Starvation Wage as the new minimum wage proposed by some individuals and economists.

This was disclosed by Chris Onyeka, Assistant General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief show.

Onyeka said the workers are insisting on the ₦250,000 they demanded at the last meeting of the Tripartite Committee on Minimum Wage on Friday.

“We have never considered accepting ₦62,000 or any other wage that we know is below what we know is able to take Nigerian workers home. We will not negotiate a starvation wage.

“We have never contemplated ₦100,000 let alone ₦62,000. We are still at ₦250,000, that is where we are, and that is what we considered enough concession to the government and the other social partners in this particular situation. We are not just driven by frivolities but the realities of the marketplace; realities of things we buy every day: a bag of rice, yam, garri, and all of that,” Onyeka said.

He also stated that the one-week grace period given to the Federal Government last Tuesday, 4th June 4 2024, would expire by midnight of Tuesday, 11th June 2024.

Onyeka said the failure of the Federal Government and the National Assembly to act on the demands of workers by tomorrow (Tuesday), the organs of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) would meet to decide on the resumption of the nationwide industrial action relaxed last week.

“The Federal Government and the National Assembly have the call now. It is not our call. Our demand is there for them (the government) to look at and send an Executive Bill to the National Assembly, and for the National Assembly to look at what we have demanded, the various facts of the law, and then come up with a National Minimum Act that meets our demands.

“If that does not meet our demand, we have given the Federal Government a one-week notice to look at the issues and that one week expires tomorrow (Tuesday). If after tomorrow, we have not seen any tangible response from the government, the organs of the Organised Labour will meet to decide on what next,” he said.

When asked what the decision of Labour would be should the government insist on ₦62,000, he said, “It was clear what we said. We said we are relaxing a nationwide indefinite strike. It’s like putting a pause on it. So, if you put a pause on something and that organs that govern us as trade unions decide that we should remove that pause, it means that we go back to what was in existence before.”

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Recall that the talks for minimum wage increment have been held for a while now with Organised Labour propositing ₦615,000 as the new minimum wage and later dropping the demand to ₦497,000, and then to ₦494,000.

Meanwhile, the government and the Organised Private Sector in the beginning proposed ₦48,000, ₦54,000, ₦57,000, and later ₦60,000 but all four offers were rejected by Labour, leading to the nationwide strike.