President Muhammadu Buhari, has assured Nigerian workers that he is painstakingly studying their demand for an increment in the National minimum wage.
This is coming, following demands by the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress, TUC, for an increment in the N18, 000 minimum wage to N56,000.
The President speaking through the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, on Monday May, 9 said, “The demand by labour for the review of the minimum wage is a legitimate request which the federal government is carefully studying and appropriately responding to.
“The other day, the labour requested for 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 for is the re-negotiation of an existing Collective Bargain Agreement (CBA).
“Every CBA based on an agreement is subject to re-negotiation at any given time that any of the partners requests for it,” Ngige said.
He however, debunked rumors making waves that the NLC and TUC are at loggerheads with the government, most especially whenever they make demands.
He said, “It is wrong for people to think that whenever the labour makes such demands, the nation is boiling.
“The labour in Nigeria has for the first time met a labour-friendly government under President 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-negotiation of the CBA,” the minister said
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