Minimum wage: No Strike Until Negotiations Are Completed – Labour

After 3 consecutive intensive deliberations between the federal government and representatives of labour unions, both parties again failed to come to a conclusion over the adjustment in workers’ salaries as a result of the new minimum wage of N30, 000.

After the meeting which began after 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday and ended at 2:00 a.m, labour said it was yet to declare commencement of its planned strike action.

President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Ayuba Wabba, who was also part of the meeting, said details of the negotiation and concessions made after the rescheduled meeting will be made public soon.

 “It was a collective bargaining process that has lasted this long. Some progress has been made but we have not been able to conclude and have collective bargaining agreement. Some committees need to do some computation. We have worked up to the early hours of today. That is in the true spirit of collective bargaining. That is what we have to do to get the process concluded and conclude the process.”

Speaking on the elapsed ultimatum issued to the federal government before commencement of the national strike, Wabba said since negotiations were still ongoing, it was not in the best  practice of the union to disrupt it with such action.

 “In collective bargaining, if a meeting is adjourned, you should know that that is not our practice (declaring strike). Our practice is that until we are able to conclude the issues, we will be able to inform them (Nigerians) appropriately, but not midway when we are making progress. We cannot abruptly disrupt the process. At the appropriate time, we should be able to give details.”

He, however, hinted that the major issues remaining in the negotiations were percentage increase and implementation by government.

Labour is demanding a 29 per cent salary increase for officers on grade level 07 to 14 and 24 per cent adjustment for officers on grade level 15 to 17.

But the federal government had presented a proposal of 11% salary increase for officers on grade level 07 to 14 and 6.5% adjustment for workers of grade level 15 to 17.

The federal government is said to have offered to make consequential movement of workers from grade level 7-14 to 17 percent from its initial 11 percent and 12 percent for grade level 15-17 from 6.5 percent; while the organised labour also shifted its position of 29 percent for consequential movement of grade level 7-14 to 25 percent and 20 percent for grade level15-17 from 25 percent.

At the end of the meeting, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, who presided over the meeting, told journalists that specific tasks had been given to some committees that must be submitted before the negotiation could be deemed completed.

Following this, he said the meeting would reconvene 7:00 p.m. on Thursday.

“We don’t want to make mistake that would be fatal thereby put the whole exercise in jeopardy. We have consensually agreed that we will reconvene this meeting at 7:00 p.m. today. This will enable those that we give assignment to complete them and get back to us. We are okay with the meeting moving on smoothly. It is very cordial. We disagreed on various issues but we have agreed.”