BY OKEY NDIRIBE
ABUJA— FEDERAL Government  Tuesday   agreed to  implement the N18,000 National Minimum Wage  Act  which President Goodluck Jonathan signed into law  last March.

The Federal Government  succumbed  to pressure from the nation’s  labour movement   and promised  to pay at the end of August.

The agreement  on the new wage Act was announced by Minister of Labour and Productivity, Emeka Wogu after two hours of closed door meeting between the Federal Government’s delegation and that of the  Labour Movement.

The Labour Minister pledged  that nobody will be victimized for confronting the government on the issue and that the increase will be effected across board. President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Abdulwahed Omar and that of Trade
Union Congress (TUC) Peter Esele were both present at the Tuesday’s talks.

Chief Wogu also declared the FG’s  commitment that the relativity adjustment will apply to all
federal workers across board. All parties to the negotiation also agreed to set up a joint technical committee to work on the relativity issue. Anyim Pius Anyim, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), chaired the meeting.

According to Wogu :  The“Federal Government has agreed to comply with the National Minimum Wage  Act of 2011. Federal Government in line with the earlier agreement has concluded the discussion with the two labour centres, NLC and the TUC on the issue of the minimum wage.”

He  continued: “The detailed negotiation on relativity adjustment with respect to the implementation of the minimum wage has been sorted out and agreed upon.

Modalities will be worked out and this will be done by the joint committee and this will be tabled before the National  Executive Councils of NLC and TUC.

“It was equally agreed that the implementation of the payment of what has been concluded upon today would begin in August 2011. Equally, in line with the spirit of this negotiation,   irrespective of  whatever role anybody played  especially  on  the part of the TUC and NLC  nobody will be victimized by government and this is the conclusion.”

On his part, Peter Esele, President_General of Trade Union Congress (TUC) in a chat with newsmen noted that the outcome of the negotiation will be discussed at the National Executive Council (NEC).

Esele confirmed that the issue of relativity was addressed and agreed upon by all parties, noting that Federal Government has agreed to implement the new wage increase across board.

He said “We are going to put what the Federal Government has agreed on the table first. That is why we are taking it back to our principals so that there would be discussion around it and we can arrive at a decision.

“Each sector will negotiate with various organs of the union. Now we have to go back to the organ of the Trade Unions so that  if we are not satisfied or have any ill-feelings about it, we can just come here and say  we are not accepting it.

There is a window around it  and we want to take back to our principals, if they accept the window, fine.”

When asked about the details of the new agreement with Federal Government, Esele declined to disclose the details of the window, adding that  “no I can’t tell you that until after our meeting.”

In his remarks, Omar noted that the: “Basically, the discussion on relativity would have been concluded by 31st of July but unfortunately, it was segmented because of one or two areas of non_agreement. Mainly in the area of adjustment across the board; as a result of compliance with the New Minimum Wage Act, this adjustment now cut across  board in order to maintain some reasonable relativity.

“But unfortunately we saw immediately thereafter that everything was to start with grade levels 01 to 06.  I am happy that we have been able to sort this today and also the issue of adjustment cutting across board will be sorted out by the joint technical committee. Hopefully from this moment, all these are the major areas of contention that delayed the whole agreement up till now.”

“Because of this development, the respective labour centres will now make formal presentation, to their respective organs in a meeting be