Minimum wage: Union warns against imminent crisis over consequential adjustment
…Calls for fresh wage structure to avoid distortion, overlapping
Ukpono Ukpong, Abuja
The Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council (JNPSNC) has called on the federal government to take urgent steps to negotiate with the council on the consequential adjustments arising from implementing the new minimum wage to avoid an industrial crisis in the civil service.
This was contained in a statement issued yesterday in Lagos and signed by the Chairman, Trade Union Side (TUS) of the JNPSNC, Mr. Abdrafiu Adeni and Secretary, Mr. Bashir Lawal respectively.
While expressing optimism that the implementation of the new wage structure would commence without delay, he explained that the standard practice is that once a new minimum wage is fixed, a fresh salary table will be generated so that employees in all salary grade levels will benefit from the new emoluments.
The union said that a new salary table would help to maintain the current relativity among all grade levels in the civil service.
It said that this was the standard practice all over the world, urging that Nigeria should not be an exception as the generation of a fresh salary table in line with the new minimum wage would prevent distortion and overlapping.
Furthermore, he urged the federal government not to repeat the same mistake that happened in 2011 which led to industrial crisis due to improper handling of consequential adjustments.
“After a national minimum wage was fixed in 2011, the consequential adjustment was not properly handled. Instead, the government awarded N900 across board for all the other grade levels in the civil service, thereby distorting the salary chart.
“This led to a lot of crisis, a scenario that should not be allowed to repeat,” the union warned.
It urged the government to do the needful by urgently inviting the joint council to commence negotiations on a new salary table that would meet the aspirations of all workers.
“We urge the government to immediately meet the TUS of the joint council to work out the consequential adjustments and produce a fresh salary structure in line with the new national minimum wage.
“The new table will also go a long way to assist the state governments to have a seamless implementation of the new minimum wage and where a negotiation will be required at all, it will be minor,” it added.
