LABOUR ‘Labour running out of patience over minimum wage review’
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has lamented that workers have waited long enough and are running out of patience for the review of the minimum wage Act.
NLC President, Ayuba Wabba stated this yesterday in a statement to mark the 2017 Democracy Day.
Wabba demanded for the announcement of membership of the minimum wage negotiating committee. He warned against military incursion, vowing that Nigerians would resist military adventurers with everything they have.
He asked the Chief of Army Staff to go beyond informing of the unholy interaction going on between some unnamed politicians and soldiers, saying such entities should be brought to book to serve as deterrent to others.
He said: “As workers, after over six years of the last salary increment which brought the National Minimum wage to N18,000, with the excruciating suffering of our members as a result of galloping inflation caused by the massive increase in the price of petrol, and the massive devaluation of the naira, our patience has been tested to the limit.
“We, therefore, urged the Federal Government to use the occasion of the Democracy Day to announce the composition of the tripartite negotiation committee so that we can negotiate and have a living wage as minimum wage.”
On the rumoured coup plot, he said: “The Nigeria Labour Congress wishes to state in the strongest possible tone that it is categorically opposed to any further military adventurism in the body politics of our nation. The damage military incursion into Nigeria’s political arena did over the decades when it imposed itself on the people is largely responsible for the underdevelopment of our political culture almost six decades after attaining political independence.
“The damage military rule caused our nation is not only in the realm of our political culture, it deepened and virtually institutionalised corruption in all segments of our national life.
“As some commentators have pointed to the fact that a number of our past military rulers are stupendously rich is a testimony that they indeed appropriated our commonwealth for their individual pockets at the expense of the vast majority of our people.”