Experts see danger around minimum wage battle
LAGOS — Industry experts and financial analysts have noted that the economy is on a tough road to recovery and that the minimum wage agitation and return of fuel subsidy will further complicate the process and prospect of early recovery.
This is even as Organised Labour Weekend said President Bola Tinubu and the National Assembly, NASS, will determine its next line of action, following last Friday’s stalemated negotiations on a new national minimum wage, NNMW.
It will be recalled that the tripartite committee on NNMW had on Friday, June 8, ended negotiations without an agreement due to sharp division in offers between employers (government and OPS) and organised labour ( Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC).
Contrary to expectations, the Federal Government negotiating team added N2,000 to its earlier offer of N60,000, leading to the deadlock that forced labour to declare a nationwide strike.
As a result of the deadlock, the committee resolved to take both the N62,000 offer by the Federal Government team which has the backing of the OPS and the N250,000 now demanded by organised labour to President Bola Tinubu for further action.
One of the members of Labour’s negotiating team told News HQ that President Tinubu and the National Assembly will determine the next step organised labour would take.
‘Looking to the President, NASS’He said: “At this point, we are looking up to the President and the National Assembly to right the wrong done by the government negotiators and their OPS counterpart. It was a high-level conspiracy among the federal government negotiators, the state governors and the OPS.
“Members of OPS hid under the bogus name of small and medium enterprises, SMEs, to claim they cannot pay reasonable wages.“
The OPS had willing tools in state governors who, from the onset, did not attend most of the meetings and never wanted to improve the wages of their employees, but were clandestinely meeting with OPS to scuttle any chance of a reasonable wage.
“For the Federal Government side, members of the team, besides ensuring that Mr President did not know the true situation of things, members did everything, including threats, to ensure we did not move forward
