‘An intent to pauperise Nigerians’ — labour faults FG’s disposition to minimum wage negotiation

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) say the federal government’s disposition to the minimum wage negotiations indicates an intent to pauperise Nigerians.

On Friday, NLC and TUC declared an indefinite strike over the federal government’s refusal to increase the minimum wage from N60,000.

The labour unions had initially proposed a national minimum wage of N615,000, which was later reduced to N494,000.

In a statement on Monday, the unions said the federal government failed to reciprocate its gesture and rather “made small jumps counter-offer”.

The unions said the counter-offer “mocks the excruciating hardship brought on workers by the government’s insensitive and oppressive economic policies”.

They said the federal government also demonstrated contempt for the negotiation process by withdrawing its core negotiating representatives.

The unions said that while the remunerations of public office holders in Nigeria are above the wages of their contemporaries outside the country, “Nigerian workers are regaled with tales of the government’s inability to pay decent and living wages to workers who are the ones who produce the wealth that they squander”.

“The current disposition of the Federal Government to the national minimum wage negotiation smacks of a class war indicative of the intents of a privileged few to wilfully pauperize and enslave the mass of our people,” the statement reads.

“This attitude is further exemplified by the failure of the Federal Government to diligently implement the so-called wage award it promised workers as a palliative to the petrol price hike.

“The payments that were made spasmodically have totally dried up since this February.

“Nigerian workers have had enough of the government’s drive to institutionalise a slave caste system.

“Nigeria’s independence, which was largely procured on the sweat and blood of Nigerian workers, guarantees equality for all citizens, including workers.

“We will resist any attempt to use slave wages as an instrument of mass pauperisation.

“We will continue to resist socio-economic policies cooked in the kitchen of neo-liberalism and neo-colonialism.

“We will resist the conspiracy of a looting ruling class to give us an identity that impugns the ideals of our founders and satirises the words in the new national anthem.”