Labour suspends indefinite strike over minimum wage

Advertisement

The Organised Labour union has suspended its ongoing indefinite strike for a week to demand a new national minimum wage and a reversal of the recent electricity price increase.

At a joint meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), an easing of industrial action measures for one week with immediate effect was agreed.

LEADERSHIP learnt that this development followed a provisional agreement between the Federal Government and unions on the new national minimum wage on Monday evening, in which it was decided to continue to engage daily at the level of the Tripartite Committee on the National Minimum Wage over the next week until a final agreement is reached.

The federal government had assured Labour leaders that President Bola Tinubu had agreed to pay a new monthly minimum wage above the original offer of 60,000 naira.

This was announced late on Monday evening at the end of a marathon meeting convened by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, ahead of the Tripartite Committee negotiations on the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and the subsequent withdrawal of the unions from the negotiating table.

LEADERSHIP reports that members of the NLC and TUC began an indefinite nationwide strike on Monday to press for their demands for a new national minimum wage and a reversal of the recent electricity tariff hike, a development that has paralysed public and private sector activities across the country.

In a statement released at the end of the meeting, which was endorsed by the Ministers of Information and Labour, Mohammed Idris and Nkiruka Onyejeocha, on behalf of the Federal Government, and the Presidents of the NLC and TUC, Joe Ajaero and Festus Osifo, on behalf of organised labour, the meeting agreed on a four-point solution as a way to end the ongoing labour dispute.

“The President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has committed to a national minimum wage of over N60,000.

“In view of the above, the Tripartite Committee is due to meet daily over the next week to agree an acceptable national minimum wage.

‘Labour, out of respect for the high regard in which the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, has regard to the undertaking set out in (ii) above, undertakes to convene a meeting of its organs without delay to consider that undertaking; and

“No worker would be disadvantaged by the industrial action,” the resolutions state.