By Dare Balogun, 19th May, 2024
The Tripartite Committee on Minimum Wage will reconvene on Tuesday, May 23 to further negotiate a reasonable new minimum wage for workers, after the organised labour walked out of the negotiation on May 15.
An invitation letter sent to the labour leaders by the chairman of the committee, Bukar Goni, states that the other members of the committee have agreed to shift grounds from the N48,000 proposal which was made on Wednesday.
The letter appealed to the labour leaders to speak to their members and attend the reconvened meeting next Tuesday.
The organised labour comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have proposed a new minimum wage of N615,000, which is way higher than the N48,000 proposal by the government.
The organised private sector, on the other hand, proposed an initial offer of N54,000. After dumping the talks, the labour leaders addressed a press conference where they expressed their anger over the Federal Government’s offer.
They blamed the government and the private sector for the breakdown in negotiation May 31 Deadline
The Federal Government had failed to present a nationally acceptable minimum wage to Nigerians before the May 1 Labour Day.
The situation has forced labour to be at loggerheads with the government. In the wake of the tussle, the NLC President Joe Ajaero insisted on the N615,000 minimum wage, arguing that the amount was arrived at after an analysis of the economic situation worsened by the hike in the cost of living and the needs of an average Nigerian family of six.
Ajaero and labour leaders have given the Federal Government a May 31 deadline to meet their demands.
On January 30, Vice President Kashim Shettima inaugurated the 37-member tripartite committee to come up with a new minimum wage.
With its membership cutting across federal, and state governments, the private sector, and organised labour, the panel is to recommend a new national minimum wage for the county.
