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The President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Festus Osifo, has insisted that ₦250,000 is the ideal minimum wage for workers in Nigeria.
Osifo reiterated the position of organised labour while speaking at the maiden Annual Convention of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Women Commission in Abuja on Tuesday, July 9, 2024.
The TUC president clarified that the new minimum wage negotiations have not been abandoned, adding that the government and organised labour are still fine-tuning the matter.
He said, “The minimum wage negotiations cannot be dead. The 2019 minimum wage (that has expired) took about two years to see the light of day. We started the negotiations in 2017.
“We promised you when we started in January (this year) that we will ensure this one is fast-tracked for us not to be in the conundrum that we were in 2019 which took two years.”
Osifo said labour’s silence on the matter is to allow President Bola Tinubu to conclude his consultation with stakeholders.
“So where we are today, we submitted the divergent position in June, when we did that you know clearly that Mr. President came out to say that he wanted to consult across the board which is the governors, Local Government chairmen, organised private sector, and labour, so we are doing some level of reach-out and conversations.
“So that what will be submitted to the National Assembly will actually be a minimum wage that will cater for the poorest of the poor, so for the fact that in the media we are not shouting, we are doing some level of internal work so that this bill will be submitted in earnest soon. We still insist on the ₦250,000 benchmark as the ideal minimum wage,” he said.
Labour recently rejected FG's offer
In June, the Federal Government and Organised Private Sector agreed on ₦62,000 as the new minimum wage, but labour unions rejected the offer.
The government, however, appealed to labour to accept the offer, saying ₦62,000 was the only realistic option that wouldn’t lead to job losses.