Minimum Wage:- NLC To Mobilise Nationwide Protest

Subsequent to the removal of the minimum wage from the Exclusive List to the coexisting List by the National Assembly (NASS), the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC)) has said it will mobilize its members to resist the scraping of the national minimum wage by the National Assembly. The union condemned in strong terms the removal in the on-going fourth amendment exercise to the 1999 constitution. In a statement signed yesterday in Abuja by its General Secretary, Dr Peter Ozo-Eson the NLC warned that the removal is “extremely retrogressive and dangerous.” The union stated that, an emergency NEC has been convened for Monday October 27, to mobilize workers for further action. The statement reads in part, “We at the Congress see the removal of Wages from the Exclusive List as an act of treachery masterminded by conservative governors and their cohorts in the National Assembly which will do the polity no good. “We recall that last year our national campaign and mobilisation on this subject matter was suspended at the instance of the leadership of the Senate which promised to revisit the issue now that they “are better informed. ........................................................................" “We advise the National Assembly to hearken to the voice of reason and the voice of the people by urgently retracing their steps because the consequences of their action could be dire for the nation.” It stated that one of the implications of this amendment is the jettisoning by the NASS of the concept of a national minimum wage as enshrined in the 1999 constitution (Item 34 of the Second Schedule), stressing that what this means is that every individual employer will determine its minimum wage. It stated further, “The other implication is that it will turn the wage determination process in states into a ‘legislative’ exercise instead of the universal best practice model of collective bargaining as enshrined in the ILO Convention 154 on Collective Bargaining as well as Convention 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining. “In light of the foregoing, the Congress believes the removal is a deliberate and calculated attempt to move us from the working poor to the slave-poor. “We also believe it is a conscious ploy by some people to truncate the on-going electioneering process. it added.