Nigeria’s Trade Union To Buhari: Be Ready For Another Strike Over Minimum Wage

The Trade Union Congress says it will issue an ultimatum to the President Muhammadu Buhari government to implement the N30,000 minimum wage or be faced with strike action.

“The implementation of the new minimum wage of N30,000 should have been done a long time ago since President Muhammadu Buhari signed it on April 18, 2019, but the government is dragging its feet over the matter needlessly. With the way things are, it seems the government is not interested in its implementation.

“We are going to issue an ultimatum to the federal government soon. We want the negotiation to resume before going ahead. However, if there is no solution to the problem of implementation in the next two weeks, we will issue the ultimatum. We have started mobilizing our members already,” the TUC President, Quadri Olaleye, said.

He added, “The position of the NJNC to call on workers to go on strike is supported by the TUC. But we want to give the government an opportunity to do something about it before taking action over the non-implementation of the new minimum wage.

“We reject the government proposal’s of 9.5 percent salary raise for employees on Grade Levels 07 to 14 and five percent for those on Grade Levels 15 to 17. We have come down from about 66 percent raise but we cannot agree on what the government is pushing to us. The government should expect our action at any time if nothing is done.”

Olaleye explained, “We have made a presentation to the federal government on this issue but it seems that the government is not ready to yield to the expectation of Nigerian workers.”

(NEWS AGENCY)