The Festus Osifo’s leadership of the Trade Union Congress on Tuesday, insisted that the N250,000 proposed minimum wage will not be abandoned.
The TUC President disclosed that the Organised Labour were meeting with officials of the Federal Government to reach an agreement on the new minimum wage.
Osifo made this known at the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Women Commission maiden Annual Convention in Abuja, themed, ‘The Dynamic Woman: Navigating Challenges in a Constantly Evolving World.’
Speaking at the event, the TUC President said that labour and the government were fine-tuning the negotiation of the minimum wage.
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He said: “The minimum wage negotiations cannot be dead. The 2019 minimum wage (that has expired) took about two years to see the light of day. We started the negotiations in 2017.
“We promised you when we started in January (this year) that we will ensure this one is fast- tracked for us not to be in the conundrum that we were in 2019 which took two years.
“So where we are today, we submitted the divergent position in June, when we did that you know clearly that Mr President came out to say that he wanted to consult across board which is the governors, Local Government chairmen, organised private sector and labour, so we are doing some level of reach-out and conversations.
“So that what will be submitted to the National Assembly will actually be a minimum wage that will cater for the poorest of the poor, so for the fact that in the media we are not shouting, we are doing some level of internal work so that this bill will be submitted in earnest soon. We still insist on the N250,000 benchmark as ideal minimum wage.”
