Mr Festus Osifo, President of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), stated to reporters in Abuja on Friday that the long-awaited announcement of the new minimum wage may not happen on May 1st.
”The negotiations by the Tripartite Committee are still ongoing. If you remember, the TUC earlier submitted N447, 000 as the new minimum wage, but we have harmonised our figure with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
“It is now N615,000. Regarding the when for the new minimum wage, the committee is still working.
“So, certainly, May 1 will not work for the pronouncement of the new minimum wage. Except if the Federal Government wants to pay the minimum wage of N500,000 to workers,” he said.
He, however, said that the N615,000 demanded by organised labour is not sacrosanct.
”The government also has its markup, and so conversations and negotiations will start and end somewhere, ‘he said.
He also noted that before organised labour arrived at that amount, a proper study was conducted.
”If you look at the N615. 000, you will think that the amount is right, but at about the time we did that computation, a dollar was about N1,700.
”I am hopeful that the committee will meet after May 1,” he said.
