THE Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), at the weekend condemned what it described as President Muhammadu Buhari’s tacit support for the governors’ purported inability to pay N18,000 Minimum Wage.
The NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, in the Congress New Year message said it was discomfiting that President Buhari appears to have given his support for the governors’ gambit, in the course of his maiden presidential media chat on December 30, 2015.
It could be recalled that the Governors Forum had last month expressed their inability of the states to continue payment of the N18,000 minimum wage due to the nation’s dwindling revenue.
But the Congress said for President Buhari echoing the claim that states might not have the capacity to (continue to) pay a mere N18, 000 as minimum wage, showed that the governors had his backing.
“For us in Congress, the position of the governors supported by the views of the Mr. President cannot be empirically defended. There is no state of the federation that cannot pay much more than N18, 000 as minimum wage if corruption and extravagance on the part of the public office holders are stamped out”, the NLC President said.
Wabba said if people are at the centre of states’ policies, which is of the essence for ensuring development, the focus should be on economic empowerment of the working people.
He added that it was also important for kick-starting the economy from its present comatose state by increasing aggregate effective demand, through their enhanced purchasing power.
He said, “Further, experience has shown that there is no amount which the employers private entrepreneurs and particularly as government will not initially claim is too much. For example, during the 2-year negotiations which led to the 2011 National Minimum Wage Act, NLC and TUC demanded N52, 000 as minimum wage. “Several states that said this was too much and they could not pay more than N32,000 would later still say that even N18,000 was too much!”
The Labour leader stated that it was of importance for the President and the governors to know that reviewing the national minimum wage upwards is a multidimensional necessity. “Economics, legality, politics and morality are pillars on which we stand. NLC will be ready to negotiate, but with the precondition that minimum wage must be reviewed and this has to be upward”, he said.
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