Consequential adjustment: FG reiterates commitment to implement new minimum wage

Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, has assured the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) that the deadlock in the consequential adjustment of the N30, 000 minimum wage for Grade Levels 7-17 would soon be over.

Ngige gave the assurance yesterday during a courtesy visit by the leadership of the NLC led by its President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba to the minister in Abuja.

“Government is not averse to consequential adjustment because a workman is due his wages. If you work in a vineyard, you must reap from that vineyard. So the issue of the national minimum wage must be sorted out for those other cadres and I am very hopeful it will be done as soon as possible.

“It is unfortunate that the negotiation was deadlocked on levels 7-17. The important thing is that we are going to negotiate it. It is a collective bargaining agreement because if you talk about the minimum wage in the strict sense of it, it is already being implemented as it is the wage for the person at the lowest rung of the ladder.

“But, the consequential adjustment following it must be implemented because you have already impinged on other people’s scale,” Ngige said

He observed that the economy was in the doldrums hence the need for the federal government to engage in a balancing act so as to not run afoul of the Fiscal Responsibility Act or run the economy aground.

“What we are saying is that all parties have to agree that the economy is in a bad shape and therefore, we have to cut our coat according to our cloth.

“There are so many things about the salaries of workers which we cannot even say as a government because some of them can impinge on the Fiscal Responsibility law. There are critical issues we must balance to achieve socio-economic equilibrium,” the minister further stated.

Responding to other issues raised by the NLC, the minister urged labour to move from the conventional union agitations to liaising with the organized private sector as the engine of economic growth and galvanize job creation in the country, insisting that government alone cannot do all.

He noted that the ministry would continue to fight for the rights of workers for commensurate remuneration and ensure equable environment for decent jobs as well as enthrone best labour practices.

Speaking further, Ngige assured that social dialogue would continue to guide relations with the tripartite community, saying that conflict is not the right way to go.

He therefore promised that National Labour Advisory Council set up by Convention144 of the ILO would soon come alive again as provision had been made for it in the 2019 budget.

He regretted that the council has not met for nearly five years due to budgetary constraints and revealed that its first national convention in over five years would be held in Abuja before the end of the year.

Furthermore, he promised that the National Public Service Joint Negotiating Council would be expanded to accommodate the new unions.

He also stressed the constitutional right of the Ministry to register unions, saying it is within its powers to stretch the elasticity of this right to accommodate and register new unions in a society where growth and dynamism is a given.

Earlier, NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, said the union has a mandate to defend, promote and protect the rights of workers, and listed concerns of casualization of workers, outsourcing of jobs, while expressing fears that the future of work was under threat by technology.

Wabba stressed the need to institutionalise social dialogue in conformity with the ILO conventions, adding that this would help promote industrial harmony and peace.

He called on the minister to intervene in payment of subventions to strengthen Nigeria’s efforts at the OTUAA, saying this would promote pan -Africanism in the region.

On the partial implementation of the new minimum wage, Wabba urged the minister to speed up the process to enable all workers benefit from the addition