By Victor Ahiuma-Young
AS labour prepares for a three-day warning strike beginning on Wednesday to force the government to implement the N18,000 Minimum Wage, leaders of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and their Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, counterparts, have warned the Federal Government that any attempt to repudiate the payment of the N18,000 new Minimum Wage pact is an open invitation to anarchy.

NLC and TUC said yesterday that there was no going back on the warning after a meeting between the  Federal Government and labour ended in deadlock.

The three-day warning strike is scheduled for between Wednesday October 10 and 12.
Workers called on President Jonathan to urgently begin the process of implementing the new wage instead of talking about a renegotiation and constituting the Vice-President Namadi Sambo Technical Committee, that plans to meet leaders of NLC and TUC today in Abuja.

Similarly, Leaders of Labour and Civil Society Coalition, LASCO, a body of organised labour and its civil society allies, are meeting today in Lagos to finalise strategies to ensure an effective industrial action.

LASCO meets in Lagos

Secretary to Lagos chapter of LASCO, Comrade Abiodun Aremu, said leaders of LASCO would converge in Lagos today to finalise strategies and other preparation to ensure that the three days warning strike achieve a lasting effect.

Comrade Aremu said though the umbrella body for civil society ally of labour, the Joint Action Forum, JAF, was not happy that labour came down from the N52,200 initial demand, it was more annoying and gross insensitivity to the plight of the Nigerian workers for the Federal Government to be foot- dragging on the implementation of the new wage.

Workers under the aegis of National Union of Textile, Garment and Taloring Workers of Nigeria, NUTGTWN, yesterday, said sequel to weekend statement credited to President Goodluck Jonathan, that the Federal Government was not ready to immediately pay the negotiated N18,000 minimum wage, the “strike scheduled for Wednesday November 10 becomes not only inevitable but absolutely logical”.

In a statement titled “Minimum wage: implementation, not renegotiation”,  General Secretary of NUTGTWN, Comrade Issa Aremu, who is also a Vice-President of NLC, argued that the reaction of President Jonathan to struggle of the NLC and TUC, over the new wage showed  that the President was being wrongly briefed on the two and half years long struggle of the NLC for improvement on the pay of Nigeria’s working men and women.

Comrade Aremu who is also a member of the Labour Strike Committee, while giving the genesis of the minimum wage struggle, said: “In response to the agitation by the organized Labour for the review of the National Minimum Wage, late President Musa Yar’Adua inaugurated a Tripartite Committee comprising the Organized Labour, Organized Private Sector and Government on July 14, 2009 under the Chairmanship of Retired Chief Justice of Nigeria, Hon. Justice SMA Belgore, GCON, to review the National Minimum Wage Act, 2000 and propose a new National Minimum Wage.

The inaugural ceremony was performed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, CFR, on behalf of the late President on 14th July 2009. The new N18,000 minimum wage is a product of painstaking negotiation and consultations by the Tripartite Committee on the National Minimum Wage.

Critical stakeholders that negotiated the new rate included State Governments, Federal Capital Territory Administration, Organized Private Sector, OPS, Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs, as well as experts drawn from key institutions and professional bodies like CBN, Nigeria Institute of Social and Economic Research, NISER, National Productivity Centre, NPC, National Planning Commission, Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, as well as Nigeria Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, NASME. All inclusive negotiation Committee was convinced on the need for upward review of national minimum wage and accordingly reached an agreement signed by all the parties for a national minimum wage of N18,000.00 per month, a compromised rate from the N52,200 demanded for by Nigeria Labour Congress.”

According to him: “Any attempt by the Federal government to revisit what has been negotiated for over two years amounts to an industrial equivalent of “rigging” the workers’ pay.

This unacceptable industrial rigging of a negotiated pay will lead to gross distortions of all the parameters already considered by Justice Belgore Committee with all the adverse implications for the morale and productivity of Nigeria’s workers. President Jonathan  so far has endeared himself to all Nigerians by his repeated promises to do something differently by following due process and respecting wise collective outcomes.

The new Minimum wage of N18,000 is an acid test for his claims to make a difference. Any attempted renegotiation of a collective wage rate violates the spirit and content of ILO Convention N0. 131 and Recommendation NO 135 respectively ratified long by Nigeria. It is also against the traditions and customs of minimum wage fixing in Nigeria.

National Minimum wage was reviewed in 1981, 1991 and 2000.  In all these exercises once a rate was agreed upon, the Federal Executive was mandated to send an executive bill to legitimize a collective outcome and leave room for implementation. The current exercise cannot and should not be different.”

President should side with Nigeria, Nigerians

Continuing, NUTGWN’s General Secretary said: “The President of the country must be seen to be above vested interests of select few employers, either state governments or private employers. At best President Jonathan must make case for the working people who have been living on miserable pay in the past decade, the period during which the ruling elite has engaged in sickening self help either through lavishing self-non-negotiated remunerations and even open corruption.

Happily the President himself agreed some employers including the Federal government pay close to the new negotiated rate.

The purpose of the national minimum wage is to give wage earners the lowest legally permissible level of wage payable in the specified period by their employers for their social satisfaction and the need of their families. It is the minimum social floor below which no worker should fall.

A country with trillion of Naira budgets in the past decades should not delay a day longer to address the compensation crisis in the land. The principle of one man, one woman one vote assumes that the man is well paid and happy to vote. A poorly paid worker cannot be a happy voter or at worse he or she will be an angry voter.

All that was needed is Executive bill to the National Assembly for approval of the minimum wage to pave the way for implementation.  Indeed to his commendable credit, the Chairman of the Committee Justice SMA Belgore attached a draft bill which was supposed to be adopted as the Executive bill to be passed to the National Assembly for approval and implementation.

The Committee’s report was long submitted to the Federal Government through the Secretary to the Government of the Federation in July 2010. The Federal government should not over task the patience of Nigeria workers.  Nigeria workers are poorer than they were decades ago.”

Nigerian worker poorer than before
He posited that “with stable exchange rate and macro economic factors like inflation, a worker who earned N125 ($240) in 1981 in real terms earned more than the current negotiated N18,000.00 minimum wage. The Federal government does not need any time longer to implement what has been extensively negotiated and agreed upon.

At a time pensions of former Heads of State, including coup plotters are being jacked up even for their dependents without consultations with Nigerians, Nigeria workers deserve their legitimate right to improved negotiated pay.

The point cannot be overstated that salaries and wages of workers always return back to the Nigeria economy, through mass spending unlike looted public funds by some politicians that are carted to Dubai and other centres of capital flight. You also cannot fight corruption from below with poorly paid work force. Money paid to mass of workers can also not be available to be stolen. Therefore a new minimum wage NOW is a win_win formula for Nigeria’s economic recovery.”

Meanwhile, it is doubtful if leaders of NLC and TUC would meet with the Presidential Technical Committee headed by Vice-President Sambo set up by the National Council of State last week Wednesday as labour leaders see the committee as an attempt to re-negotiate the already agreed minimum wage.

Though the Committee had invited labour leaders for a meeting today in Abuja, the leadership of labour are not keen on the meeting.

NLC and TUC had in a joint statement weekend said: “The TUC and NLC holds that  the part of honour lies in government respecting the spirit and letters of agreements it freely enters and that if the outcome of negotiations are not respected by government, it would be an invitation to anarchy.

Ordinarily, following  the agreement which also included a draft bill, the procedure would have been for government to send the bill to the National Assembly to pass into law.

Surprisingly, Government after six months is still foot dragging. Given the foregoing,  and the setting up a ‘technical’ committee, the inevitable conclusion is  that  our political leaders in the Council are not advised on the plight of the common man and the urgency required in the implementation  of a new minimum wage in the country.

The NLC and TUC reiterates their directives to all workers to embark  on the three_day warning strike from Wednesday  10th November to Friday 12th November, 2010. This is preparatory to the indefinite strike that will follow should Government refuse to implement the Minimum Wage Agreement.”