…as it resolves to joining nationwide minimum wage strike

The Delta State University branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU-DELSU) has decried the suffering of the average worker and described the current monthly minimum wage of N18, 000 as death wage and not a living wage.

Minimum wage

In a statement jointly signed by the Chairman and Secretary of the branch, Professor Abel Diakparomre and Dr. Emmanuel Ufuophu-Biri respectively, the Union described the Nigerian worker as about the least paid in the world going by the N18, 000 national minimum wage.

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The Union leaders disclosed that the Branch resolved at its Congress of 28/09/18 to join the ongoing nationwide minimum wage strike called by the Nigerian Labour (NLC}, Trade Union Congress (TUC) and other organized labour bodies. They pointed out that the branch took cognizance of the fact that the Nigerian workers have been Longsuffering and have the right to a living wage (not the current minimum death wage of N18, 000).

Professor Diakparomre and Dr. Ufuophu-Biri described the average Nigerian worker as living in lachrymal poverty and is at the precarious point of extinction because of hardship arising from the poor pay and general degraded standard of living,

According to them, the N18, 000 earned by Nigerian workers is approximately $50 a month: Thus, the average Nigerian worker lives on less than $2 a day; whereas the minimum national wage in America is about $7.75 an hour. By implication, the daily wage of the average American worker and that of many other countries is more than the monthly pay of the Nigerian worker.

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Prof. Diakparomre and Dr. Ufuophu-Biri regretted that Labour had to engage government rigorously in effort to increase the minimum wage from what could be best described as death wage to a manageable state of subsistence wage. They added that it is worrisome that Government has refused to listen to organized labour on the minimum wage increase despite the manifest suffering of the Nigerian workers.

They called on organized labour to sustain the strike and remain resolute until Government heeds the voice of labour on the minimum wage issue.