FG, OPS Raise Minimum Wage Offer to N57,000

FG and OPS raise the offered minimum pay to N57,000

The new minimum wage negotiations between the Federal Government, organized labor, and the organized private sector took an interesting turn at midnight. While organized labor had reduced its initial figure from N500,000 to N497,000, the Federal Government and OPS had made a new offer of N57,000 as the new minimum wage.

Recall that certain governors who were scheduled to attend but did not show up caused the high-level conference to be postponed on Tuesday.

According to report, it stated: “Government has agreed that NLC is using evidence- based presentation. But they argue that eight states are not paying or not fully implementing the 2019 minimum wage.”

The source further said, “Government is talking of non-availability of fund. They are also talking about the inability of the private sector to pay.”

Regarding labor shifting by organized labor, the source stated: “Labour has been requested to shift in response to the Government. They complied and came down to N500,000.”

He revealed that Hope Uzodimma, the governor of Imo State, attended the meeting.

“The Imo State Governor has stepped in. He is not a member of the committee but it is good that there is at least a governor, as the six governors in the committee have been regularly absent.”

Remember from Tuesday's meeting that our source disclosed that the government's proposal to maintain the current N54,000 wage level amounted to a pay cut, given that the lowest-paid employee was receiving N70,000.

He had observed that time was running out due to the government's position, which had not resulted in any serious deliberation.

Remember too that the lack of some state governors, who were supposed to be present to provide support for any decisions that might come out of the meeting, caused the meeting to end on a non-conclusive note.

Our informant who was present at the meeting claims that , “It took some time to state what they want to pay and they were passing the buck on who will present it and then the Minister of Labour now said they have shifted the ground to N54,000.

“We still told them that, that ground they shifted, they have not started the negotiation. As it is now the take home of the lowest paid worker is over N70,000. So, by their standard, we have not started negotiating minimum wage, what we are negotiating now is wage reduction because what they are now telling us is that if we walk out from there, if we agree on N57,000 that means we will come out and tell people who are already earning N77,000 that their wage has been reduced. We told them that workers can't start earning less than what he/she was earning.

“Is it that there is reduction in inflation or that the cost of living has improved, or is it that the cost of food has come down, why will they now be negotiating wage reduction, it's unthinkable, we cannot involved in this kind of a thing that labour will sit down and be negotiating wage reduction and on what will it be based? Will it be based on the fact that the money they are collecting now since petroleum subsidy was removed has been reduced?

“Or why will they now be talking about wage reduction when even the inflation is going higher and the cost of living is going higher. So, we told them that that is not acceptable, but then we had to adjourn because we could not continue to negotiate without the presence of governors.

“It will not augur well for the Tripartite Committee. They said they didn't know why the governors were not there, six of them that are supposed to be on that committee. We told them that this is a serious matter because when they refuse to come even if at the end we agree on anything they will say it's not bidding on them because they were not there. There was a permanent secretary representing one governor and the person may have no input, so nobody will decide on their behalf when they are not there. So, we had to adjourn to tomorrow by 4 pm.

“So we said let's adjourn and invite the governors formally. When they offered N57,000, we told them they had not started, we didn't see that as any shifting of ground which they promised, shifting ground must start from the point of negotiations for minimum wage, anything below N75,000 is wage reduction, anything below take home of the lowest paid worker is wage reduction. We cannot start negotiating wage reduction.”

“Already the clock is ticking, we gave them May 31 deadline to conclude negotiations, today is May 21, we have 10 days to go and it will not augur well for this country if negotiations are not concluded on time. This one is no more the case of we didn't do an agreement, it's the case of the government not negotiating the minimum wage. I don't think we need any other notice (for strike). They also said that as far as they are concerned, they are working towards that so that we will conclude before we go to Geneva for the ILO.”