Jonathan yet to sign minimum wage bill, Labour threatens strike

BY VICTOR  AHIUMA-YOUNG
INDICATIONS have emerged that labour is set to declare a nationwide industrial action next week over perceived refusal by President Goodluck Jonathan to sign into law the N18,000 new minimum wage bill to pave the way for its implementation after the National Assembly passed the Bill  three weeks ago.

This came as there are feelers that governors opposed to the new wage increase are putting pressure on President Jonathan not to assent to the bill until after the general elections.

Investigations revealed that anti-N18,000 new minimum wage governors who do not want to pay the new wage and some Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, bigwigs may have convinced the President to tarry a while at least until after the general elections before assenting to the bill.

According to a Presidency source, the anti-N18.000 minimum wage forces believe that if the President assent to the Bill before the elections, it would become a campaign tool and their failure to implement the wage could lead to disaster and misfortune in the elections.

This, the source said, might have forced President Jonathan, who according to the source, does not want to be blamed for the political failure of any party members especially governors, to suddenly develop cold feet after promising to assent to Bill without delay once the National Assembly passed it into law.

It will be recalled that organized labour on March 2, threatened to frustrate the April general elections should the government fail to implement the new minimum wage pay increase.

According to the Presidency source, “by the projection and understanding with his kitchen cabinet, the President was to have assented to the minimum wage law before March 14, so that the wage would reflect in the March pay package of the federal civil servants. This was what informed the announcement by the Minister of the Federal Territory, Senator Bala Mohammed, on March 15 that the President had assented to the minimum wage Act as passed by the National Assembly”.

Piqued by perceived betrayal by the government, organised labour is considering to declare a nationwide strike next week to force the President to  not only to sign the Bill into law, but also ensure immediate implementation of the N18,000 new minimum wage.

Already, leaders of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, are meeting tomorrow in Abuja to deliberate on this and other socio-economic and political developments in the country.

Comments are moderated. Please keep them clean and brief.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
blog comments powered by