THE organised labour in Nigeria has declared a nationwide strike commencing from Monday, June 3, over the federal government’s failure to meet its demand for a new minimum wage.
The president of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Festus Osifo, announced the strike during a joint news conference with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) leadership in Abuja on Friday, May 31.
The labour leaders stated that they took the decision after their ultimatum for the federal government to finalise all negotiations for a new minimum wage by the end of May expired.
The ICIR reported that the federal government on the eve of Workers’ Day (April 30) announced that it had approved a salary increase of between 25 per cent and 35 per cent for civil servants on the remaining six Consolidated Salary Structures.
The federal government also approved pension increases of between 20 per cent and 28 per cent for pensioners on the Defined Benefits Scheme in respect to the six consolidated salary structures with effect from January 1, 2024.
However, reacting to the development, Ajaero said that organised labour agreed on N615,000 as the living wage for civil servants.
Giving the breakdown of the figure, he said “We have housing and accommodation of N40,000. We asked for electricity of N20,000 — of course, that was before the current tariff increase. Nobody can spend this amount currently. We have a utility that is about N10,000. We looked at kerosene and gas which is about N25,000 to N35,000.
“We looked at food for a family of six, that is about N9,000 in a day. For 30 days, that is about N270,000. Look at medical, N50,000 provided there will be no surgery or whatever.
Ajaero also stated that N20,000 was allocated for clothing, N50,000 for education, and N10,000 for sanitation.
He said another bulk of the money was for transportation, noting that the workers were on the fringes because of the cost of PMS, which amounted to N110,000.
“That brought the whole living wage to N615,000 and I want anyone to subject this to further investigation and find out whether there will be any savings when you pay somebody on this rate.”
While addressing the concerns raised by the NLC, the federal government stated that although the Tripartite Committee on National Minimum Wage was yet to conclude its negotiations, workers would not incur any losses.
However, there has been deadlock between the organised union and the Tripartite committee, with labour pulling out of the negotiation.
The union also rejected two federal government offers, with the latest being the offer to pay N60,000 as a minimum wage.
Usman Mustapha is a solution journalist with International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: [email protected]. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M