The Minister of Labour and
Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, commenced dialogue with labour unions again in
Abuja on Wednesday as time runs out on a deadline issued by labour for the
payment of a new wage approved for workers by the Federal Government.
The leadership of the Nigeria
Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress and the Joint National Public Service
Negotiating Council (JNPSNC) are participating in the latest meeting with
Ngige.
On Oct. 7, labour leaders issued a
communiqué, warning that economic activities would be shut down on Oct. 16, if
the Federal Government failed to reconvene a meeting of the committee on
consequential adjustments.
Speaking on Wednesday, the
Secretary-General of the JNPSNC, Mr Alade Lawal, told a meeting of the
Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria in Abuja that workers had
started mobilising for strike.
He said the partial implementation
of the minimum wage for levels one to six was a ‘divide and rule’ system that
would be vehemently opposed by labour.
“As far as I am concerned, nothing
has been implemented. What are they implementing? We are negotiating something
and somebody went behind to start issuing one circular.
“As far as we are concerned,
nothing has been done and if you want to look at it, levels one to three has
been out-sourced.
How many people are there? So when
you even look at the circular, it is full of errors. As far as we are
concerned, no circular has been issued.
“You have a salary structure, you
have a ratio between the minimum and the maximum, when the minimum was 18,000,
you have what you have at the maximum, then you have tilted the minimum to
30,000, are you going to leave the table there?
“It is distortion. You don’t allow
distortion and it’s not allowed anywhere in the world. That is why you do
consequential adjustment,’’ he argued.
Lawal pointed out that organised
labour was not opposed to discussion, consultations or anything.
He said that what was worrisome was
the delay in reconvening the meeting of the committee on consequential
adjustment.
“In the communiqué, issued last week
by TUC, NLC and the Joint Council, we were asking government to reconvene the
committee and within one week, let the committee complete its assignment.
“As labour, we are not adverse to
discussion, consultations or anything. But they are yet to reconvene the main
meeting of the committee.
“What I am saying is that the
minister is free to call us. We will go. We are hoping that maybe he wants to
use it to talk to the two sides before reconvening the meeting.
“What I am saying is that you can’t
sign any agreement in an informal meeting, until you reconvene the meeting of
the committee handling the negotiation on consequential adjustment.
“Anytime from Oct. 17, the
leadership of labour will give directive to members nationwide on what to do.
“The measure of seriousness can
only be seen if something concrete is done between now and Oct. 16. We are not
part of government. We don’t know what they are doing.
“We can’t preempt them. So let’s
see what happens between now and the 16th.
If after the 16th and nothing is done, maybe, we can start
rationalising.”
NAN reports that implementation of
the new wage has remained a problem, arising from the issue of relativity and
consequential adjustments.
On May 14, the Federal Government
inaugurated the relativity and consequential adjustment committee, which in
turn set up a technical sub-committee to work out a template for the adjustment
of salaries of public service employees.
However, government and labour have
failed to reach an agreement over relativity and consequential adjustments for
the implementation of the new minimum wage more than six months after it was
signed into law.
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