Minimum wage: Why we can’t resume suspended strike Today — NLC

The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, has explained why the organised labour would not be resuming its suspended nationwide strike after the expiration of a one-week window for continued negotiation over minimum wage, on Tuesday.

Recall that the Organised labour, after a meeting with a federal government delegation last week, suspended its two-day nationwide strike, promising to resume if the government fails to agree with them on a new minimum wage for workers. 

But Ajaero, while speaking at the ongoing International Labour Conference (ILC) in Geneva, Switzerland, said the tripartite committee submitted two figures to President Bola Tinubu and the organised labour is waiting on the president to decide.

He said: “The tripartite committee submitted two figures to the President. Government and employers proposed N62,000 while labour proposed N250,000. We are waiting for the decision of the President. Our National Executive Council (NEC) will deliberate on the new figure when it is out.” 

On the expiration of the one-week suspension of the strike that is expected to resume on Tuesday, Ajaero said: “We cannot declare strike now because the figures are with the President. We will wait for the President’s decision. During the tenure of the immediate past President, the figure that was proposed to him was N27,000 by the tripartite committee but he increased it to N30,000. We are hopeful that this President will do the right thing. The President had noted that the difference between N62,000 and N250,000 is a wide gulf. Now that labour has demonstrated this high level of goodwill, we expect that the government will reciprocate this.”

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