Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
Nigeria may be in for a major shake as the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has threatened to lock down the country for one month over alleged plot by the National Assembly to decentralise payment of minimum wage.
This was hinted Tuesday, by the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, while speaking during the 67th Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association Annual General Meeting in Lagos.
He vowed that Labour would not fold its hands and watch the legislators decide their fate as slaves.
Ajaero said that labour would stoutly resist the move by the National Assembly to remove the issue of wage from exclusive list to concurrent list.
He maintained that even the International Labour Organisation, ILO, recognises minimum wage as a national and not sub-national matter.
Ajaero said labour would not accept slave wages by states.
He said: “As we are here, a Joint Committee of the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Judiciary are meeting. They have decided to remove section 34 from the Exclusive legislative list to the Concurrent list so that the state governors can determine what to pay you and so that there will be no minimum wage again. You cannot decide what you should earn.
“The very moment the House of Representatives and the Senate come up with such a law that will not benefit Nigerian workers, they will be their drivers and gatemen, and there will be no movement for one month.
“We cannot accept any situation where the governors and the National Assembly members will foist a slave wage on workers and force poverty on the citizens. Organised Labour will not accept it.
“We don’t have a situation where people determine their wages that amounts to some level of illegality. In the constitution, there is a provision for equal work for equal pay. If we go into job analysis and job evaluation, we may discover that a clerk here may be doing the same work as the clerk in Sokoto.
“The so-called decentralisation of wages to pay somebody here less than what the other person is receiving is against the concept of equity and equality before the law.”
“Every country has their minimum wage and some states are paying higher than the basic minimum wage, and that is the position of the law anywhere.”
However, he said, some people instigated by the governors were saying they would not be able to pay N60,000 even when their members were in the meeting with labour, saying this was being done in bad fate.
“We have put our members on notice that if these people succeed in coming up with such unpatriotic and obnoxious law. This democracy they are playing with, we have enough in this country in terms of hardship. Some people, based on their privileged positions want to inflict more Injuries on the workers and citizens of this country and that will not be accepted.
“Every worker in Nigeria across the country is seen as Nigerian workers and any attempt to discredit them in a federation will first be resisted by the NLC.
“There is no governor that is not receiving the same thing nationwide, they are not receiving according to their revenue in their states, but they want that of the workers to be so. So, the issue of using revenue as a basis for the payment of minimum wage is a lame one. If any governor is making that argument, then he doesn’t know what governance is all about.
“Governors can do better, and they should stop lamenting; because lamentation year in and year out that they can’t pay will not pay as far as there is a lot of money for them to control.”
