The Trade Union Congress (TUC), has vowed to reject any offer which turns out to be a little addition to the ₦60,000 new minimum wage offered by the Nigerian government.
TUC President Festus Osifo made this disclosure on Tuesday while featuring on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme monitored by Africa Today News, New York.
According to Osifo: “We also told them that it’s not that we’d get to the table and you start adding N1, N2, N3,000 as you were doing and we got some good guarantees here and there that they would do something good.”
TUC and the Nigerian Labor Congress, NLC, had declared an indefinite strike on Monday to demand a better wage for workers.
The organized labor demanded N494,000, while the Nigerian government proposed N60,000.
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After a meeting between the government and labour, the strike was called off while President Bola Tinubu ordered the Finance Minister, Wale Edun, to come up with the financial implications of a new minimum wage within 48 hours.
Mohammed Idris who is the Minister of Information and National Orientation, made this knoow in in Abuja on Tuesday after a Federal Government delegation on the new minimum wage met with the President.
“The President has directed the Minister of Finance to do the numbers and get back to him between today and tomorrow so that we can have some figures ready for negotiations with Labour.
“Mr President is determined to go with what the committee has set. He is also looking at the welfare of Nigerians,” he said.
Idris said the government is not an opponent of labour or wage increase.
The FG delegation includes Idris; Edun; Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume; Labour Minister Nkiruka Onyejeocha; Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu; Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila; and the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mele Kyari.