Minimum Wage: Labour Meeting with FG End In Deadlock Again, Strike looming

The discussions between the Federal Government and the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council over the N30,000 national minimum wage ended in a deadlock again as both parties refused to shift ground.

Strike image

A source in the labour movement said after the meeting held on Monday that the representatives of government were not serious.

The PUNCH reported that although Buhari had signed a new minimum wage into law on April 18, 2019, the negotiations between the Federal Government and the JNPSNC had earlier broken down due to unresolved irreconcilable differences in their proposals.

The last negotiation which was supposed to hold on September 4, was suspended on Tuesday last week and rescheduled to hold on Monday September 16 at the instance of the officials.

While the Federal Government proposed 9.5 per cent salary increase for employees on grade levels 07 to 14 and five per cent for those on grade levels 15 to 17, the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria were demanding 30 per cent increase for officers on grade levels 07 to 14 and 25 per cent increase for grade levels 15 to 17.

A labour source said, “We have discovered that the government is not serious at all; a mandate was given to the government side to take the position of labour and government’s team to President Muhammadu Buhari and report back at the meeting.

“But we discovered that they didn’t do it; they are just taking us for a ride. So, we are reporting that the meeting was deadlocked and our next line of action will be to report to our parent unions.”

(Punch)