The organised labour on Tuesday expressed its resolve not to accept any little addition to the ₦60,000.00 offer by the tripartite committee on the new minimum wage. Festus Osifo, President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), made this known on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Tuesday.
Organised labour comprising the TUC and the Nigeria Labour Congress suspended its industrial action which started on Monday following an agreement reached with the Federal Government.
The government promised that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was committed to a minimum wage more than the N60,000 earlier offered.
Said Osifo when asked whether labour would accept a few thousand Naira additions to the offer: “No, we also told them that it’s not that we’d get to the table and you start adding ₦1, ₦2, ₦3,000 as you were doing and we got some good guarantees here and there that they would do something good”.
The TUC boss added that labour was not fixated on ₦494,000 as the new minimum wage for workers in the country but the tripartite committee must show seriousness and offer workers something economically realistic in tandem with current inflationary pressures.
Alhough, the union leader refused to mention a specific amount, he said the new minimum wage must be equal in purchasing power to the value of ₦30,000 in 2019 and ₦18,000 in 2014.
