As workers in Nigeria under the umbrella of NLC and TUC embark on a nationwide strike over a new minimum wage the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, says the workers’ demands are not affordable.
Edun, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics programme, said in a democracy, the wage negotiation process is a very important one.
He said the “complex and difficult” process is ongoing “but with goodwill on all sides, we will come to a landing that benefits all Nigerians”.
The minister said, “It is difficult because the worker deserves his wage, and given what is going on, they deserve a change and in fact, by law, every five years, and maybe, we shouldn’t have to wait five years every time to set a new wage scale. The fact is that by law, it is a minimum wage.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) had said the current minimum wage of ₦30,000 could no longer cater for the wellbeing of an average Nigerian worker, lamenting that not all governors are paying the current wage award which expired in April 2024, five years after the Minimum Wage Act of 2019 was signed by former President Muhammadu Buhari. The Act should be reviewed every five years to meet up with contemporary economic demands of workers.
Labour later handed the Federal Government a May 31 deadline for the a new minimum wage. On May 31, the workers’ organs in the country declared a nationwide strike beginning from Monday, June 3, 2024 over the government committee’s inability to agree on a new minimum wage and reversal of electricity tariff hike.
During the failed talks with the government, Labour rejected three government’s offers, the latest being N60,000. Both the TUC and the NLC subsequently pulled out of negotiations, insisting on ₦497,000 as the new minimum wage.
