President Muhammadu Buhari’s plan to setup a technical committee to consider the proposed new minimum wage has been rejected.

Labour leaders have rejected plans by the Federal Government to set up another high-powered technical committee on the new national minimum wage, a report by The Nation has revealed.   Leaders of the union comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the United Labour Congress (ULC) stated this in a communiqué jointly signed at the end of a national leadership meeting of organised labour in Nigeria.    They dismissed the establishment of another committee in Lagos on Thursday as diversionary and delay tactics.   They lamented almost two months after submission of the report by the national minimum wage tripartite committee, which included a draft bill, no bill has been submitted to the National Assembly for passage into law.   NLC President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba said: “As far as we are concerned, all the issue has been addressed by the Tripartite Committee.“This one is a delay tactic by the Federal Government and it will not work”. ULC President Comrade Joe Ajaero said it is not the duty of the Federal Government to know how the states or private sector will implement the minimum wage. “Federal Government should allow the labour union in each state to discuss with their states government on how to start the implementation,” Ajaero said.   They explained the Federal Government was expected to transmit the new national minimum wage bill to the national Assembly on or before the 31st of December 2018.   They noted the Federal Government was planning to set up a high-powered technical committee, which they considered alien to the tripartite process and ILO convention on national minimum wage setting mechanism.   They urged workers to be vigilant and prepared to campaign and vote against candidates and political parties not supportive of implementations of the new national minimum wage.   TUC’s President Comrade Bobboi Kaigama said if government fails to transmit the bill to the National Assembly for implementation on or before 31st of December, labour will re-open the suspended strike.   “Organised Labour will not guarantee industrial peace and harmony if after the 31st of December 2018, the draft bill is not transmitted to the national assembly,” he said.

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