Nigeria’s major labour unions have indicated they may resume a nationwide strike suspended last week to allow the government raise its offer for a new minimum wage.
The strike by the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress last Monday brought the country to a standstill as aggrieved workers shut down the national grid leaving the nation without electricity, blocked air travel as well as financial services.
The unions wanted N494,000 as minimum wage, an amount they say is justified considering the unprecedented cost-of-living crisis Nigerians are facing after fuel subsidy was scrapped and the naira devalued.
During talks last week, they reduced their demand to N250,000 while the government added N2,000 to make their offer N62,000.
State governors, widely criticised for wasting public funds on frivolous costs, claimed last week they cannot pay N60,000 as that would not be “sustainable.”
Chris Onyeka, assistant general secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), said Monday that the union has rejected the government’s measly increase.
“Our position is very clear; we have never considered accepting ₦62,000 or any other wage that we know is below what Nigerian workers can take home. We will not negotiate a starvation wage,” Mr Onyeka said during a programme on Channels TV’s Morning Brief on Monday.
“We have never contemplated ₦100,000 let alone of ₦62,000. We are still at ₦250,000; that is where we are, and that is what we considered enough concession to the government and the other social partners in this particular situation. We are not just driven by frivolities but also by the realities of things we buy every day: bags of rice, yam, garri, and all of that,” he said.
Mr Onyeka said the one-week deadline given to the federal government will end on Tuesday. The NLC and TUC will meet after Tuesday to consider restarting its nationwide strike if the government fails to act, he said.
“Our demand is there for the government to look at and send an executive bill to the National Assembly and for the National Assembly to look at what we have demanded, the various facts of the law, and then come up with a national minimum act that meets our demands,” he said.
“If that does not meet our demand, we have given the federal government one-week notice to look at the issues and that one week expires tomorrow. If, after tomorrow, we have not seen any tangible response from the government, the organs of the organised labour will meet to decide what to do next.
“We said we were relaxing a nationwide indefinite strike. If you put a pause on something and the organs that govern us as trade unions decide that we should remove that pause, it means that we go back to what was in existence before.”
Not Sufficient
Last week’s strike followed weeks of failed negotiations between the unions and the Nigerian government.
The current minimum wage, set at N30,000 per month, has been deemed insufficient by unions due to soaring inflation, which has eroded purchasing power and caused significant hardship for many Nigerians.
Millions of Nigerians are feeling the pinch of rising living costs. The inflation rate rose to 33.67% in April, according to official figures, driven by the government’s removal of petrol subsidy, devaluation of the naira, low food production, and scarcity of foreign exchange.
Many Nigerians, however, believe the rate of price change in the last one year is over 100%. A bag of rice that sold at N30,000 a year ago now sells at over N75,000 a bag, far more than the minimum wage.
The labour unions accuse the government of being deliberately slow to conclude talks that started nearly a year ago, while it swiftly imposes additional taxes on Nigerians.
The government says the amount demanded by the labour unions would cripple the economy.
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