When will this minimum wage be sorted out,going bark and forth with strike will not help matters,it will only continue to weaken the country as things are not been implemented properly until it gets to their boiling point.
The Nigerian Labour Congress, the Trade Union Congress and the
Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria on Wednesday, October
22, 2014 threatened to go on an indefinite strike to protest the
decision of the National Assembly to move the minimum wage from the
exclusive legislative list to the concurrent list.
The unions said they had rejected the planned deregulation of wages
which in their argument, they said if allowed to succeed, it would be
akin to a declaration of war on Nigerian workers and would complicate
the already bad security challenges in the country.
The general secretary of NLC, Dr. Peter Ozo-Esan, speaking to the
press said that the organised labour would resist the move of the
National Assembly with all the resources at its disposal.
He added that the NLC had called an emergency meeting of its National
Executive Committee for Monday, October 27 to take a final decision on
their action.
Ozo-Esan: “Clearly, we are opposed to the movement of the labour
issues to the concurrent list. You know that the Senate President (David
Mark) gave a promise to revisit the issue during a protest organised by
the labour unions on this issue to the National Assembly. And the House
of Representatives voted against it so it is a surprise to us.
“We are opposed to it, we think it is retrogressive, it is not an
issue we will allow to stand, we are going to contest it with all the
resources at our disposal. You will be hearing from us on that.
“As we speak, we have conveyed an emergency NEC meeting on it for
Monday next week; it is the organ that will take the NLC’s next position
on the issue…
“We have always taken a position that we require autonomy for local
governments, we are ok with that, we have canvassed that position for
some time. What we are opposed to is a situation, where autonomy will
now affect payment of teachers’ salaries.”
ACSN has also declared its intentions to join in on the strike action.
This was made known in a statement signed by the president and
secretary-general, the ASCSN, Mr. Bobboi Kaigama and Mr. Alade Lawal
respectively.
The association called for “a total resistance to the move by the
National Assembly to further impoverish Nigerian workers by outlawing
the meagre national minimum wage through the backdoor.”
ASCSN said, “It is surprising that the National Assembly wants to
complicate the security challenges in the country by inviting millions
of Nigerian workers to take to the streets by its insensitive decision
to deregulate wage.
“The monthly take home pay of each member of the National Assembly is
about N30m. Yet, they are pained that Nigerian workers receive N18, 000
monthly minimum wage which is about $109 per month.
“It must be emphasised that all countries of the world have National
Minimum Wage which must be paid by all employers to their workers.
Indeed the ILO Convention 131 of 1970, of which Nigeria is a signatory,
requires member countries to institute a National Minimum Wage below
which no employer should pay.”
Source: The Trent
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