NLC – No Going Back On Strike

Francis Okeke and Abdulwasiu Hassan

18 July 2011

Organised labour last week served notice for a three-day warning strike following government’s inability to implement a new national minimum wage of N18,000 as signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan last March.

NLC’s deputy president Comrade Promise Adewusi, who read a joint statement by the unions, said the strike must go on because no payment table has been issued by either the Federal Government or the state governments. The Federal Government has invited labour leaders for dialogue today while the governors have fixed a meeting with the labour leaders for tomorrow.

TUC’s Deputy National President Comrade Musa Tony represented TUC while Mr. Tunde Aremu spoke for the civil society organisations at yesterday’s press briefing. While welcoming the “promise by the 36 state governors that they will pay the new wage,” Comrade Adewusi said no meeting with any arm of government will avert the three-day warning strike which is a prelude to an indefinite strike if the government refuses to come up with an acceptable table of implementation. The governors’ invitation to the union leaders was ill motivated, he said.

“For all you know, this may be a mechanism and design to try to demobilise our people. We have seen it before. We are not taking chances. Therefore, as we discuss with them and take note of what the President General of the TUC has always said, if they call us to a meeting, 24 hours to the takeoff, we are sorry the strike will go on.

“They had all of 18 days; first was 14, we now allowed a grace period again of almost one week and they were not talking. They only start talking on the eve; what do you suspect? It is a mechanism to demobilise our people. We will not fall for that evil machinations and design,” he said.

While giving all tiers of government three months within which all arrears should be paid, he also said state councils of the NLC and TUC can only discuss implementation of the minimum wage of N18,000 as captured in the National Minimum Wage Act and nothing else.

According to him, “what the NLC, TUC and the Nigerian working people demand is a signed agreement between the Federal and State governments on one hand and the NLC and TUC on the other stating that: The New National Minimum Wage of N18, 000 will be implemented across board based on salary relativity that will not distort the payment table at the Federal, State and Local Government levels.

“The payment of the new Minimum Wage will take effect from March 23, 2011 the day President Goodluck Jonathan signed the New National Minimum Wage into law and that arrears from the Minimum Wage will be paid within three months.” Also, they demanded for workers “not to be victimized over the Minimum Wage by way of mass retrenchment, increase in tax or in any other form.”

Speaking on the impending strike, Comrade Adewusi said “it is our hope and wish that the governors should not allow this strike to go on but should this strike be allowed to go on, from Wednesday, indeed from midnight on Tuesday, no aircraft will fly, the ports would be completely shut down, the roads would be deserted, nobody would be allowed to be on the road, there won’t be any university that would be opened, the banks would be closed.

“We therefore call on all Nigerians and that is why we gave this leeway so that between Monday and Tuesday, they can stockpile foodstuffs, they can go to the bank to collect money because even NEPA as erratic as it is will not work.”

He went down memory lane, saying that “it is amazing to us that a state government like Abia which last year proposed a N46,700 National Minimum Wage would delay in paying the N18,000 minimum wage. It is equally shocking that states like Kwara, Imo and Kebbi which proposed N30,000 minimum wage and the FCT and Anambra State Government which offered in 2010 to pay N25,000 minimum wage will show reluctance when asked to pay N18,000.

“On the average, the state governments proposed a new National Minimum Wage of 21,800 in 2010, so why would they be reluctant to pay N18, 000? It is also instructive that when in 2009 and 2010 the Federal Government gathered its agencies as experts on the Minimum Wage, their submission on what should be the New Minimum Wage was higher than N18,000.

“For instance, the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) proposed N34,200 monthly, the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER) came to the conclusion that the New Minimum Wage should be N41,000, the National Productivity Centre proposed N22,000, the Central Bank N20,216.01 and the National Bureau of Statistics proposed N18,036.73.

“On the average, the Federal Government through its various agencies proposed N22,500 as the New Minimum Wage in the country. It is therefore baffling that the same Federal Government is bent on creating an industrial crisis over the payment N18,000 Minimum Wage.”

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