Labour calls for immediate implantation of New Minimum Wage

Mr Abdulwahed Omar
The president of the Nigerian Labour Congress

Labour calls for immediate implantation of New Minimum Wage
Helen Shok-Jok, Kaduna

The president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Mallam Abdulwaheed Omar, has urged governments at all levels to, as a matter of urgency, begin the immediate implementation of the new national minimum wage, which he said was already four months behind.

Mallam Abdulwaheed made the appeal at the opening in Kaduna, northern Nigeria, of the tenth Harmattan School, organised by the NLC, for the year 2011.

Addressing the participants, the NLC President said: “As you all know, the NLC and TUC signed an agreement with the federal government on July 19th 2011, on the implementation of 18, 000as the new minimum wage. It was agreed that the implementation will commence from August 2011, with arrears paid from March 23, 2011. But as I speak to you four months later, the federal government has failed or refused to implement this agreement. It appears that elements within government with suicidal instincts want to provoke a general strike and mass protest on this issue.”

He also cited insecurity as one of the major challenges facing the country and called on the government to take pro-active measures to secure the lives of Nigerians and those living in the country.

Be sensitive

The NLC, he said was averse to some policies of government that it termed anti-people. The union leader listed these to include the proposed hike in electricity tariff by 100%, re-introduction of toll gates on Nigerian roads and a planned constitutional amendment that would annul the national minimum wage.

According to him, such a policy will only ensure that “states and private employers pay starvation wages. The NLC will never allow this to happen.” He stressed.

On government’s plan to deregulate the downstream sector of the nation’s oil industry, Mallam Abdulwaheed Omar advised the government to have a change of heart, arguing that the policy “will further complicate matters for a hungry citizenry.”

The NLC appealed to the federal government to be sensitive to the basic needs of the Nigerian people, saying that it would as a union, do all that was constitutional to defend the basic rights and interests of Nigerian workers, in order to safeguard the future of the next generation.

Bracing for 21st century challenges

Declaring the training open, Kaduna state governor, Mr. Patrick Yakowa, commended the NLC for continuing to build the capacity of its members.

Yakowa said the programme would go a long way in bracing civil servants for the challenges of the 21st century and pledged that his government would continue to partner with labour in its quest to develop a veritable civil service.

The theme for the 2011 NLC Harmattan School is “Building National Integration and Sustainable Development: the Role of Labour and Civil Society.”

The programme is an avenue for the training of trade union leaders and activists, with the view to empowering them on the rules of trade unionism. Participants will also be equipped with the intellectual resource base to serve their members and build integration at the work place and throughout the nation.

 Hajia Sani

Williams