Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) have reiterated their plan to embark on a nationwide strike if the government fails to comply with its demands regarding the minimum wage on October 16, 2019, since that is the only language the Government understands.
The labour groups have declined an offer from the Federal Government for salary adjustment of Civil servants on Grade level 07 to 14 with an increase of 11 percent and 6.5 percent for GL 15 to 17.
Ayubba Wabba, the National President of NLC made the disclosure to Newsmen saying, there was a need to draw the attention of the government to end negotiations and come to a conclusion in order to enable civil servants enjoy their new wage. The President also noted that the negotiations were taking too long and ought to have been concluded a long time ago.
In addition, the Labour President stated the willingness of the Labour group in dialoguing with the government for a conclusion to be reached in the shortest time possible.
Ayubba Wabba urged the government to take a closer look and examine the issues raised holistically, in order to see reasons the consequential salary adjustment has to have a major impact on all Civil servants across the various grade levels
According to the NLC President,
“We had a discussion with the Joint Public Service NegotiatingCouncil and we thought that there should be an end to every process of social dialogue, every process of negotiation must actually have an end.
“This issue has lingered and it seems like there is no way out of it and therefore we need to draw attention that this issue must be addressed and it cannot be addressed without bringing the people to the table.
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“We have said that the meeting must be reconvened towards addressing the issue to a logical end and I think that is the best way in industrial relations and that is why we had to come together as organised labour to look at the issue and say well, this is not the first time we are doing minimum wage, we have a lot of empirical data to point to what is the consequential adjustment because this issue started in1981.
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“We must have a situation where this can impact all workers; we go to the same market both senior and junior workers, so these are issues that can be resolved on the table and labour is ready for dialogue to avoid the issue. A costs of goods and services have gone up, but salary has remained the same, we must see reason to look at these issues holistically and address it.”
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