Workers should fight for good governance,
not minimum wage
not minimum wage
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) on Tuesday formally presented their minimum wage proposal of N56,000 to the Federal Government. “I can say now authoritatively that as of yesterday (Tuesday) we made a formal proposal to the Federal Government of N56, 000 to be the new minimum wage. The demand has been submitted officially to government and we hope that the tripartite system to look at the review will actually be set up to look at it”, NLC president Ayuba Wabba said. Whilst this might have drawn applause from workers in the country, it would seem to me an indication that Labour has not learnt any lesson with regard to minimum wage. The unions seem to be doing the same thing all over and therefore should not expect a different result. When in 2011 the present minimum wage of N18,000 was fixed, the same way they celebrated; now the euphoria is gone and the workers are back to square one.
Of course Wabba advanced good reasons for Labour’s position. One is that the law stipulates that minimum wage must be reviewed every five years. If the last review was done in 2011, then it is time to review it again, so that, to use Wabba’s words, workers would “not be seen as sleeping on their rights”. The logic, according to him, is that no worker should be taking salaries that cannot sustain him for 30 days. In other words, workers’ take-home pay should be able to take them home. Can the present minimum wage do that? I’m afraid, ‘No’. There is also the problem of manufacturers who will not be able to sell their products if workers are too poor to buy. Workers have to be empowered to be able to buy what they need. This is as well impeccable. Wabba crowned it all by alluding to the connection between corruption and good wages. If workers are not well paid, the temptation to steal will be high. Again, one can hardly fault this.
Indeed, those who conceived the idea of five-year review of the minimum wage did so for very good reasons, chief of which is to index it with the rate of inflation. True, a lot of waters had passed underneath the proverbial bridge since 2011 when the minimum wage was last reviewed. As at the time workers got the N18,000, crude oil was selling at about $111 per barrel and the exchange rate was N110 to the dollar. Today, not only has crude price fallen (around $46 per barrel), the exchange rate too has depreciated, with the Naira now exchanging for about N321 to the dollar at the parallel market. Ironically, it is now that Labour wants N56,000 minimum wage! Wabba noted the bad state of the economy: “Our argument is that, yes, it is true that the economy is not doing well, but the law stated that wages for workers must be reviewed after every five years”.
There is, however, one point Labour has not mentioned, which is enough to knock out all the good points it made to justify its call for N56,000 minimum wage. And that is the fact that many of our political leaders have over the years proved that they cannot be trusted with the noble responsibilities placed on their shoulders because they care only about themselves. That is why they always think they must have access to whatever comfort money can buy, even when those who supposedly elected them (and they are representing) do not even know where the next meal will come from. It has been said time and again that our legislators are about the highest paid in the world. Some of those who made the assertion had often cited examples from different parts of the world, including the United States of America and Britain where lawmakers take public transport and live in moderate apartments. Also, they are not paid stupendous allowances in those countries as our own lawmakers, even as they do not have perks that are wrapped under the table. Everything about their worth as lawmakers is open and transparent.
Let me therefore help Labour by adding the prodigal manner in which our political leaders live as one of the reasons to justify the new minimum wage. With our kind of politicians, it is quite a valid point for Labour and indeed all other Nigerians who do not have access to public funds to insist on having as much as possible of the national cake.
Perhaps if the political leaders only live big at our expense, without stealing brazenly in a way that we had to notice, as in the immediate past, we would not be this aggrieved. But the way and manner many of these political leaders and their cronies help themselves to our common patrimony cannot but make us angry. I doubt if there is anyone that is angrier than me over this matter. Indeed, that was what made me become a proponent of the idea that Nigerians should always insist on having the best of good life that money can buy from government so that those who intend to steal will have very little left to pilfer. The political leaders and their cronies have so much to steal because we often leave too much free money in their care, and because we do not ask questions.
Moreover, you have people who served at best for eight years and after that, they award themselves mouth-watering packages that have no bearing with the country’s economic realities. These are more serious issues that Labour should fight; and not to keep asking for wage increases which the political leaders would almost always grant if that would make the Labour unions happy and keep their eyes from prying into what is happening in the executive, legislative and other chambers (of corruption) that dot the landscape.
We should be wiser now.
Indeed, this assumption (by Labour and the rest of us that increase in minimum wage is the solution to workers’ poverty in the country) is analogous to the belief that chopping off the head is the cure for headache. We are where we are in the country because of bad governance. Even if crude prices have not crashed, the country would still have been in trouble, given the rapacious and primitive manner the country was stolen blind, particularly in the Goodluck Jonathan years.
I can bet it, the government would most likely grant some concession, (that is after reminding labour that its members constitute only a fraction of the Nigerian population and can therefore not get what it wants fully) but whatever concession government grants will still not take most workers home, whether in cosmopolitan Lagos or in rural Ekiti or Osun, going by the prevailing cost of living which is not likely to improve unless we have good governance. And I see the workers gladly embracing government’s new minimum wage when it finally comes. But, in a few years time, however, the reality would dawn on them that what they thought they got was not what they actually got. At the rate we are going, a time will come when we would have to buy a loaf of bread which can hardly feed two persons for N250.
Why Labour has not thought along this line of insisting on good governance instead of its fixation with wage increase is what I do not understand. Could it be that it is shying away from this line of reasoning because it is also afraid of its own shadow? Whether we like it or not, Labour too is enmeshed in some integrity crisis, particularly concerning its housing scheme which remains as messy as ever. And for it to demand good governance, it must also put its house in order. You can’t go to equity with soiled hands. I have this feeling that Labour often capitulates in crises times due to the fear that government could want to blackmail its leaders with some of these messy deals. So, when the Labour should be in the forefront of struggles, its leaders suddenly develop cold feet and abandon the cause, citing some threats of treason from government as reason.
But the simple truth is that a man with logs in his own eyes cannot tell another to remove the speck in his.
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