Jonathan Nwokpor
President Bola Tinubu held a meeting on Thursday to discuss the minimum wage problem, but it concluded on a note of indecision.
However, it gave the President and organised labour, which includes the Trade Union Congress and the Nigeria Labour Congress, access to the talks. an occasion to have a heart-to-heart conversation.
The main focus of the one hour-and-a-half meeting was to examine the concerns that call for raising the present minimum wage while stressing the realities of the modern economy.
Nevertheless, in order to give the government and labour side more time to deliberate, the meeting was adjourned till next week.
Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, the state minister for labour and employment, characterised the brief meeting as productive because it was more or less a family discussion between a father and the children.
She said, “It was a fruitful meeting, father, children meeting. I think we are hopeful that very soon everything will be resolved. Of course, when father and children talk you know what it is. That’s just exactly what has happened. It took us almost an hour. I believe that it’s all for good”.
The NLC President, Joe Ajaero, stated that the meeting will take place again the following week and that neither side has changed their stance on the sum.
Ajaero said, “in a real sense, it wasn’t a negotiation but a discussion and we have had that discussion. We agreed to look at the real terms and to reconvene in the next one week. So that’s where we are. Because we didn’t go down there to talk naira and kobo. At least there were some basic issues that we agreed on”.
Asked whether they deliberated on the N250,000 being demanded by Labour, the NLC President replied, “I remember mentioning that we didn’t go into Naria and Kobo discussion. Now the status quo in terms of the amount N250,000 and N62,000 remains until we finish this conversation”.
Festus Osifo, the TUC President, affirmed Ajaero and Onyejeocha, saying they informed the President of the current state of the economy in no uncertain terms.
He claimed that in light of the struggles Nigerians were facing, they attempted to persuade the President of the need to raise the minimum wage.
His words, “In the meeting we tried to put the issues on the table. Issues that are bothering and biting Nigerians today, are the economic difficulties and the value of naira, how it has also eroded, and how these have affected the prices of commodities and goods in the market.
“We tried to put these before Mr President because he is the President of the country and the bulk stops at his table.
“We have had all the conversations with all his agents, but today we said let us meet with the father of the country and have this conversation and make the argument that Labour always make, we made all the arguments, the economic analysis, macro, micro, fiscal and monetary issues. So we put everything forward and at the end, the president made his remark as the president and we all agreed “Let’s go back, we internalize it, we have some conversation and in one week’s time, we will come back and we will continue the meeting”.
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