Year 2016: Toughest, most difficult ever for workers – NLC

• May demand more than N52, 000 minimum wage

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has described the year 2017 as the toughest and most difficult for workers, pensioners and the worst for the generality of Nigerians.

In its New Year message signed by its president, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, the congress the outgoing year was “perhaps the toughest and most difficult for workers, pensioners, and the generality of the poor and working people of this country in almost three decades.”

In a message titled: “New Year is an opportunity to deliver on promises, Wabba said the combination of fuel price increase, devaluation of Naira, increase in electricity tariff and the rise in inflation has made life very worse for Nigerians.

The NLC president said: “The astronomical increase in the pump price of petroleum products, the massive and continuing devaluation of the Naira, the rise in inflation, and the 43 per cent increase in electricity tariff in February 2016, all combined to make life difficult for the wage earners, and worse for the teeming millions of our people without any means of livelihood. In the last 12 months, the living standard of majority of Nigerians has taken a terrible beating as a result of the above.”

He therefore commended and congratulated Nigerian workers and people for surviving the difficult times to see the New Year; adding that the patience and patriotism of the workers in the face of the daunting challenges of the preceding year are commendable.

He said, “The economy went into full recession in the course of the year, with the 4.3 per cent GDP growth projection for the year turning into negative growth from about the second quarter of the year. At the beginning of 2016, the Naira was exchanging at N197 to $1; by the end of the year, it had depreciated to N495 to $1 in the so-called black market, with at least nine or more other rates in between in the name of flexibility introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

“Under this regime, we have different rates of exchange for pilgrims, Customs, budget, Interbank, fuel imports, Bureau de Change, Special Funds Airlines, Western Union, Travelex etc. The projection and forecast for the economy in the New Year are equally not very optimistic.”

Wabba, highlighted some of the struggles embarked on by the congress in the year 2016 to include the strike against fuel price increase, struggle against unpaid salaries and pensions/retrenchments in the public sector and the campaign against corruption.

He stressed an urgent need for new national minimum wage, saying that in the New Year, the NLC will redouble its efforts, using all available means at their disposal to get the Federal Government to constitute the tripartite panel to renegotiate a new minimum wage, which must be a living wage.

The NLC president, however, gave an indication that the organized labour may be asking for more than N52,000 national minimum wage as earlier demanded in their request to the government.

He explained that their earlier demand has since been eroded by the exchange rate which has put the present minimum wage at just $36.3 per month.

He said: “Since we submitted a written request for a new national minimum wage of N52,000 per month last year, the purchasing power of Nigerian workers has so depreciated that it is pure miracle that individuals on the existing minimum wage of N18000 are able to make ends meet in 30 days. At the beginning of 2016, with the Naira at N197 to $1, the minimum wage was equivalent of $91.3. At N495 to $1 this has in 12 months depreciated to $36.3.

“The May 2016 huge increase in price of fuel from N86 a litre to N145 a litre, and the attendant inflationary pressures, should have trigged an automatic increase in the minimum wage.

“With the erosion in the living standard of workers occasioned by the free fall of Naira, and the rising cost of living, we insist that we will not allow ourselves to be made the sacrificial lamb of the recession. We will in the New Year redouble our efforts, using all available means at our disposal to get the Federal Government to constitute the tripartite panel to renegotiate a new minimum wage, which must be a living wage.”