President of the Trade Union Congress, Festus Osifo on Tuesday, reiterated that the ideal minimum wage for Nigerian workers should be N250,000.
He emphasized that both the TUC and the Nigeria Labour Congress were actively engaging with Federal Government officials to reach an agreement on this matter.
According to The PUNCH, Osifo made these remarks during the maiden Annual Convention of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Women Commission in Abuja.
The event, themed ‘The Dynamic Woman: Navigating Challenges in a Constantly Evolving World,’ provided a platform for this critical discussion.
The push for a new national minimum wage has hit a temporary pause as President Bola Tinubu seeks further consultations with stakeholders before forwarding the bill to the National Assembly.
While the Federal Government and the Organised Private Sector have tentatively agreed on N62,000 as the new minimum wage, the labour unions remain firm on their demand for N250,000.
Speaking at the convention, Osifo clarified that the negotiations for the new minimum wage are ongoing and far from abandoned.
He reflected on the protracted negotiations for the 2019 minimum wage, which took two years to finalize after starting in 2017.
“The minimum wage negotiations cannot be dead. The 2019 minimum wage (that has expired) took about two years to see the light of day. We started the negotiations in 2017.
“We promised you when we started in January (this year) that we will ensure this one is fast-tracked for us not to be in the conundrum that we were in 2019 which took two years,” the TUC president stated.
Osifo further explained that the current minimum wage issue is actively being addressed, with the President seeking extensive consultations before submitting the proposal to the National Assembly.
“So where we are today, we submitted the divergent position in June, when we did that you know clearly that Mr President came out to say that he wanted to consult across board which is the governors, Local Government chairmen, organised private sector and labour, so we are doing some level of reach-out and conversations.
“So that what will be submitted to the National Assembly will actually be a minimum wage that will cater for the poorest of the poor, so for the fact that in the media we are not shouting, we are doing some level of internal work so that this bill will be submitted in earnest soon. We still insist on the N250,000 benchmark as ideal minimum wage,” Osifo stated.
