NLC: “New Minimum Wage Should be N1 Million Due to Hardship”

Confidence UbaniFebruary 12, 20242 Mins read274

Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, has indicated it might push for a new minimum wage of up to N1 million for Nigerian workers. The President of the union, Joe Ajaero, made this known in an interview on Arise News.

Ajaero cited continuous inflation, heightened cost of living, and economic policies, including removing fuel subsidies, influencing this potential demand.

During the interview on Sunday evening, he highlighted the impact of the depreciating value of the Nigerian naira and the current exchange rate of about N1,400 or even more to a dollar. He emphasised that the demand for a higher minimum wage is intricately linked to the prevailing societal conditions, particularly the rising cost of living.

“Foodstuff is getting out of reach, now are we going to get a minimum wage that will not be enough for transportation even for one week?”, Ajaero questioned.

In his spirited address, the NLC president also underscored the importance of considering the inflationary effects on essential commodities like rice and locally produced corn, which have seen significant price increases.

Concluding, he said: “The old minimum wage will be expiring by April, and ordinarily, the Federal Government ought to have set up a committee six months before that time so that negotiation would have commenced, but the Federal Government didn’t do that until (recently when) they inaugurated a committee and the committee has not sat.

“It appears we are going to work within one month or two to agree on a figure, and I doubt how those are going to… especially when you look at the people that the Federal Government assembled as committee members.

“They looked at some of the governors that are not paying even the existing minimum wage and even they have a minister of budget who didn’t implement his minimum wage as a governor.

“If you have these people in the government team on the issue of minimum wage, some of us have not seen a bright future in the work of this new minimum wage committee.”

Recall that on Thursday, the NLC and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) issued a 14-day strike notice to the Federal Government to express frustration over the government’s failure to implement a 16-point agreement signed in October 2023. This agreement was meant to address the hardships caused by the rise in petrol prices and the devaluation of the naira. The aftermath of President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies continues to bite citizens hard.