New Minimum Wage: NLC Gives Reason For Accepting N70,000

Organised labour has explained that it agreed to President Bola Tinubu’s N70,000 new national minimum wage increase because wage review will now be every three years, not five years.

The president of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Joe Ajaero and his counterpart in the Trade Union Congress, TUC, Festus Osifo disclosed after a meeting with President Tinubu on Thursday.

The NLC President, Joe Ajaero said: “What has been announced in terms of the amount of N70,000 happened to be where we are now. But the cool thing about it is that we will not wait for another five years to come on review.

“Rather than settling on a figure that we wait for five years, it’s like we’ll have to now negotiate even two times within five years.

“That is one of the reasons why we decided to reach where we are today. Because of the proviso that we can review in the next three years.”

On his part, Osifo said: “The President (Tinubu) made a pronouncement or announcement of N70,000. By next week, he should put the finishing touches to the bill and the transmission to the National Assembly.

“But why this became a catch is because we, from organised labour, have been pushing that the issue of a five years review is a long time, that a lot of economic indices may have changed because we are in an era where things are moving very fast in terms of both macro and micro economic policies.”.

It would be recalled that on Thursday Tinubu announced N70,000 new minimum wage increase for Nigerian workers.

He also promised that the federal government would support the sub-national and private sectors to pay the N70,000 minimum wage.