Minimum Wage: Labour Threatens Fresh Strike, Give Ultimatum

TUC Issues Ultimatum On New Minimum Wage

The Trade Union Congress has urged President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to implement the N30,000 minimum wage or be faced with strike action from the workers.

The labour leaders accused the government of dragging its feet over the implementation of the new minimum wage to Nigerian workers.

Naija News recalls President Buhari signed the new minimum wage bill on April 18, 2019 after both chambers of the National Assembly had earlier passed it.

The TUC President, Quadri Olaleye said if the payment is not implemented in the next two weeks, workers will be mobilized and an ultimatum issued to the government.

“The implementation of the new minimum wage of N30,000 should have been done a long time ago since President Muhammadu Buhari signed it on April 18, 2019, but the government is dragging its feet over the matter needlessly. With the way things are, it seems the government is not interested in its implementation.

“We are going to issue an ultimatum to the federal government soon. We want the negotiation to resume before going ahead. However, if there is no solution to the problem of implementation in the next two weeks, we will issue the ultimatum. We have started mobilizing our members already,” he said.

“The position of the NJNC to call on workers to go on strike is supported by the TUC. But we want to give the government an opportunity to do something about it before taking action over the non-implementation of the new minimum wage.

Olaleye also added in his interview with Punch that the current proposal been offered by the federal government for the implementation of the new minimum wage to Nigerian workers is not acceptable to the labour leaders.

“We reject the government proposal’s of 9.5 percent salary raise for employees on Grade Levels 07 to 14 and five percent for those on Grade Levels 15 to 17. We have come down from about 66 percent raise but we cannot agree on what the government is pushing to us. The government should expect our action at any time if nothing is done.”

“We have made a presentation to the federal government on this issue but it seems that the government is not ready to yield to the expectation of Nigerian workers.”