The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige has stated that the call by the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, for an upward review of the national minimum wage is to be expected, adding that the federal government is carefully looking into it in order to come up with a suitable response.
Ngige made this known yesterday while playing host to the executive members of the Organisation of Trade Unions of West Africa (OTUWA) in Abuja.
The minister said, “The other day, labour requested increased wages for workers and they have only done what they are supposed to do. Therefore, nobody will quarrel with them.
“At the appropriate time, we shall all sit down because what the labour is asking is for the re-negotiation of an existing Collective Bargain Agreement (CBA).
“And every CBA-based agreement is subject to re-negotiation at any given time that any of the partners requests it.”
Ngige, while dismissing rumours of labour being at loggerheads with the federal government as a result of the demand, said machineries are being put in place to look into what he described as a ‘legitimate call’ by the NLC.
He added, “It is wrong for people to think that whenever the labour makes such a demand, the nation is boiling. The labour in Nigeria has for the first time met a labour-friendly government under President Muhammadu Buhari.
“The government has put machinery in motion as we speak because I have got a letter as the Minister of Labour and Employment for my advice. We shall advise the government the way such a tripartite negotiation will be handled so that everybody will be satisfied without any industrial unrest.
“Government in this sense includes also the state and local governments whom such wages will be binding on. When government takes a decision, we will now move to another stage in the process of re-negotiating the CBA.”
The Minister stated that the Change mantra of the current administration is geared towards changing the way things are done for the better.
“We are in an era where due process supersedes every other. People can only perform their roles and give way for other people to also perform theirs.”
He stressed that labour is part of the tripartite arrangement of the International Labour Organisation structure which Nigeria is signatory to.
He further commended OTUWA for fulfilling its roles as envisioned by the ILO.
In his address, the OTUWA president, Comrade Mademba Sock, noted that three-decade-old organisation in 2015 took far-reaching decisions to revive and re-position OTUWA.
He said the decision to re-locate its headquarters from Abidjan, Cote d’ Ivoire, to Abuja was to enhance its operations since the headquarters of ECOWAS is in Abuja.
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