Members of the unions, including the Nigerian Labor Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), have scheduled an emergency meeting following the decision of the Federal Executive Council to defer the minimum wage memorandum.
The meeting, confirmed by a senior official at the NLC headquarters, will take place at Labor House, Abuja, at 10am on Wednesday.
The agenda is to discuss the next step to take after the FEC’s decision to postpone the discussion on the report of the Tripartite Committee on the New National Minimum Wage.
PREMIUM TIMES previously reported that the FEC decided to postpone the note on the Tripartite Committee report on the new minimum wage.
This decision was communicated by the Minister of Information and National Guidance, Mohammed Idris, to House of Representatives correspondents after the council meeting in Abuja.
Idris explained that the memorandum was withdrawn to allow President Bola Tinubu for further consultation, noting that the federal government is not the only party involved in determining the minimum wage.
State governments, local government areas, unions and the organized private sector are also actors in this matter.
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“Although we already have a position, we will meet tomorrow morning (Wednesday) to refine our position before we are consulted. This is important for us,” said the NLC official.
During the last meeting of the tripartite committee, the federal government and the organized private sector (OPS) agreed to pay N62,000, while the unions revised their demand to N250,000.
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On June 12, during the Democracy Day celebrations, President Tinubu pledged to send a national minimum wage bill to the National Assembly for approval.
The president indicated that the proposed minimum wage could be subject to review within the next five years.
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“We have negotiated in good faith and with open arms with the unions for a new national minimum wage. We will soon submit an executive bill to the National Assembly to enshrine what has been agreed as part of our law for the next five years or less,” President Tinubu said in his national broadcast.
Labor, however, said the tripartite committee did not reach any agreement on what the minimum wage should be.