The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) on Tuesday issued a two-week deadline for Governors to commence negotiations on the N35,000 wage award for workers in their states.
The Organised Labour unions are making the demands in line with the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Federal Government (FG).
Recall that the national leadership of the NLC and TUC on October 1 reached an agreement with the FG to pay N35,000 to all federal workers beginning from September, pending when a new national minimum wage is expected to have been signed into law.
The resolution provided that the wage award would be paid to the federal workers for six months while states were encouraged to extend the same benefit to their workers.
Labour had cancelled its nationwide strike scheduled for the 3rd of October, 2023 with the promise that the wage awards would be implemented.
Meanwhile, the State chapters of NLC and TUC disclosed that they have written to Governors to fast-track the necessary protocols and implement the award meant to assuage the subsidy removal pains.
According to the unions, the deadline for payment of the wage award would expire in the next two weeks.
The Kano State NLC Chairman, Kabiru Inuwa speaking with Punch revealed he had written to the state government to demand the immediate implementation of the N35,000 wage award in the state.
Inuwa said, “We have written to the government requesting for the payment of the wage award to workers in the state and we are still waiting for the government to respond.”
He noted that the deadline given by the NLC to the federal and state governments to implement the wage award and other welfare packages for the workers would soon expire.
He expressed the hope that the state government would pay the wage award before the expiration of the deadline.
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Inuwa added, “The ultimatum given to both state and federal governments will expire by the end of this month, so we hope the government will start the payment before the end of the deadline.”
Ibrahim Fika, Gombe State NLC Secretary, on his part, said the 30-day ultimatum, which is now remaining two weeks, applied to workers in state governments.
“The ultimatum says the state councils should negotiate with the state government. So it applies to us,” he said.
The Rivers state TUC Chairman, Ikechukwu Onyefuru, said it would fully comply and implement the ultimatum given to FG
He stated, “State unions are subject to national directives and the 30-day ultimatum was issued by the national body to the Federal Government and directed all state chapters to also issue demands to their respective state governments and implement the same.
“This means that if any state peradventure decides to jettison that directive, such a state is already in breach of the national directive.
“So what I am saying is that it is a national directive, and the respective states have been served and it is expected that they will respond.’’
The Chairmen of the NLC and TUC in Benue State, Terungwa Igbe and Gideon Akaa, disclosed that they had written to the state governor on the wage award for workers.
Igbe said, “The union has written to the state government about the wage award, and we asked for N35,000. But we have yet to receive a response from the government. Well, I cannot say for now what we will do if the government fails to pay; it all depends on their response.’’
But the Niger State NLC chairman, Idrees Lafene, stressed that workers might demand more than N35,000 from the state government given the spike in the cost of living.
He disclosed that discussions had gone far on the wage award implementation, and they were optimistic that the government would yield to their demands.
“Yes, we’re still on the negotiation table and we are asking for more; we’re asking for more than N35,000 and the discussion has gone far,’’ he stated.
