N35,000 wage award will run till new minimum wage commences —Ajaero

President of the Nigeria Labour Congress(NLC), Comrade Joe Ajaero, has said that the agreement between the Federal Government and organised labour regarding N35,000 wage award, was that the money will be paid to workers till the proposed new minimum wage kicks in.

Ajaero, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja.

Recall that payment of N35,000 wage ward was part of the agreement between the federal government and organised labour as part of the packages meant to cushion the effect of the removal of fuel subsidy.

To set the record straight following talks in some quarters that the payment of the wage award by government was for only six months, the NLC president said; “we did not sign six months wage award with the Federal Government, we sign a wage award that will be in existence until the new minimum wage is determine.

“We are in the process of collating the compliance of the federal government on the payment of the wage award and we have even had a conversation with the leadership of the Trade Union Congress(TUC) on this. We have asked our affiliates to collate the level of compliance to this and we are still waiting for their correspondents.

“Even last week, during a courtesy call, I raised the issue with the Minister of Labour and Employment on that, it is not just the wage award, the entire agreement we had with them, they have not conceded to it.

Ajaero went on to say that other issues that were yet to be implemented by the federal government were that the Porthcourt refineries, CNG buses, wage award, among others.

He however, assured workers that the issues were been looked into holistically.

According to him, I have asked the federal government to go through all the agreements they have entered with us because that is where we are starting the year from.

“We are not starting the year from even minimum wage, we have to look at sanity and compliance to the agreement already entered with the government. So far, it has not been rosy, there seems to be nobody that is keeping tap with the agreement and at a time like this, we need to get it right at the beginning of the year, so we are working on this issues seriously.” He added.