L-R: Festus Osifo, TUC president; Joe Ajaero, NLC president, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and Nkeiruka Onyejiocha, Minister of State for Labour.
Minimum Wage talks between the Organised Labour and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu again on Thursday got adjourned without a conclusive agreement.
Organised labour will meet Tinubu again in seven days to continue discussions as the meeting called at the instance of the President, just ended with no meaningful resolutions reached.
The Labour leaders who emerged from the meeting, however, told reporters that their consultations with the Presidency would continue next week as they also had to go back to their organs to relay what the President discussed with them.
Joe Ajaero, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) presideny, said the positions of N250,000 for Labour and N62,000 for the Federal Government still stood.
He described the meeting not as a negotiation but as a discussion with the president.
Said Ajaero: “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 probably and reconvene in the next one week.
“So that’s where we are. We didn’t go down there to talk Naira and Kobo. At least there were some basic issues that we agreed on.
“We didn’t go into Naira and Kobo discussions. Now the status quo in terms of the amount N250,000 and N62,000 remains until we finish this conversation”.
Festus Osifo, TUC president, said the meeting looked at the issues “bothering and biting Nigerians today”.
But speaking with State House correspondents in Abuja on Thursday, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, Minister of State for Labour, expressed confidence that the minimum wage issue would soon be resolved.
The Minister spoke shortly after President Tinubu met with the leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC).
Said she: “It is a fruitful meeting, father and children. 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 about an hour. I believe that it’s all for good”.
The NLC and TUC, on June 3, embarked on a nationwide indefinite strike over the failure of the Federal Government to agree to their demand for the minimum wage.
The labour bodies proposed N494,000 as the new minimum wage, citing inflation and the prevailing economic hardship in the country while rejecting the Federal Government’s N60,000 offer.
The Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), on June 7, said a N60,000 minimum wage would prove unsustainable.
Labour, at the last meeting of the tripartite committee set up to negotiate the minimum wage, rejected the N62,000 proposed by the government and lowered its demand to N250,000.
