There is growing discontent over unequal salary structure, even as the lopsidedness has been blamed for fuelling corrupt practices among public and civil servants in the country ELEOJO IDACHABA writes.
In Nigeria, inequality in remunerations in the public and civil service has always been a thorny issue. It is even worse in the private sector especially the unorganised and informal subsectors where employers determine, in a fiat, the take home packages of their employees based on their discretion.
Analysts have argued that private sector employers were not to blame for this absurdity in remuneration because it was the outcome of an unregulated political economy bedevilled by high rate of unemployment.
The agitation for equity in remunerations for workers has been one of the cardinal thrusts of Labour agitations over the years. In many cases, it appears in the form of casualisation of employees who in most cases do the same jobs as those on full time engagement.
Under this derogatory system, employees classified under ‘casual’ staff do not enjoy certain benefits like their colleagues with regularised engagement.
In other situations, it appears in the form of marginalisation of the female folks against their male counterparts where male employees are paid higher benefits than their female counterparts.
This is where the aphorism of ‘what a man can do, a woman can do even better’ is no longer a consideration.
Activists are of the opinion that there is no justification for this sheer imbalance. To the dismay of many, even within the public service, where government takes charge of salary payment to all its employees, investigation showed that some Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) classified as lucrative attract better pay than others.
Discussion is usually in favour of what government outfits known as revenue generation agencies as a way of explaining it.
However, investigation by Blueprint Weekend showed that there was a growing discontent against this lopsided arrangement, a development that analysts say is largely responsible for the unprecedented level of corruption in most public offices.
Equal Pay Day celebration
Nigeria joined the rest of the world to mark the year 2020 International Equal Pay Day, a day set aside by the United Nations (UN) to reflect on the different models employed by employers of labour, whether in the public or private sectors, to pay workers their wages.
On that day, the global community demonstrated solidarity with the plight of workers suffering in silence over unequal pay in a market economy that accommodates everyone irrespective of income.
Through a virtual global call to action, it encouraged all labour market actors to take the necessary steps to ensure that equal pay is at the heart of recovery efforts worldwide especially in the face of the devastating Covid-19 pandemic.
The day, celebrated for the first time on September 18, represents the longstanding efforts towards the achievement of equal pay for work of equal value. It further builds on the United Nation’s commitment to human rights and against all forms of discrimination, including discrimination against women and girls.
Lopsided pay unacceptable – Analysts
An analyst Princewill Akuma writing on salary disparities for Jobberman journal said several discriminatory practices rock the workplace and unequal pay is just one of them.
According to Akuma, “Unequal pay practices are bad for your organisation because you would be denying and discriminating against your employee’s fundamental rights to the wages due them.
“They are entitled to it; it is not a favour being done. It is earned and should be given. Take a look at your compensation or salary level to determine if your organisation is being fair in the practice of equal pay.”
He further stated, “Unequal pay would inevitably lead to salary discontent amongst male and female colleagues. A discontented workforce would be detrimental to your employee engagement strategy and also distort the bond within teams.
“Unequal pay practices would affect your employer branding efforts as well as your ability to employ and retain the best hands. There will be a high churn rate in your workforce; not just with women as it is largely believed if you can short-change one gender in pay, you will be unfair to others in other areas.”
Gender pay gap
Writing on Gender Pay Gap in Nigeria Tinuke Fapohunda of Lagos State University (LASU) said there was labour market discrimination anytime men and women of equal productivity and aspirations are treated differently in hiring, retention, training and promotion practices.
“There is labour market discrimination when two equally qualified individuals are treated differently solely on the basis of their gender. Where there is no discrimination, profit-maximising employers in a competitive labour market will pay workers based on their productivity.
“Where discrimination exists, it adversely affects the economic status of women and others by bringing about differences in pay between men and women not accounted for by differences in productivity-related characteristics.
“Such inequality may occur when women are paid less than their marginal products as a result of discrimination or when labour market discrimination directly lowers women’s productivity and their pay,” she said.
Workers unions kick
For a while now, workers under the auspices of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) have been calling on government and employers of labour to address the problem of inequalities in wages and income.
One of such calls was in 2018 during the 25th anniversary celebration of the establishment of National Salaries Income and Wages Commission in Abuja.
The President, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Ayuba Wabba, and his Trade Union Congress (TUC) counterpart, Bala Kaigama, used the occasion to call on the federal government to address the disparity especially in the public sector.
The event which was attended by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, also had in attendance the Executive Chairman, National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, Dr Richard Egbule and other government officials.
The NLC president said there was need for the government to come up with a compensation system that can conveniently boost the productivity capacity of workers.
According to him, “We are in a system where you have today more than 25 salary structures. When we mention the principle of equal pay for equal productivity, such does not apply here and as a union, we feel this does not encourage productivity.
“If you are in a privileged organisation, you can even earn higher than your colleague with the same qualification and in some cases the productivity is higher than the other and that is where the contradiction is.
“Our compensation process should be a process that can stimulate productivity because the two work together. If a worker is not paid well like his colleagues, he cannot take care of his family and pay school fees and other responsibilities.
“It is with a better and equal compensation plan that I will be able to think well and work well. Therefore the two must come together to work together.”
Speaking further Wabba said, “We are in a system today where people think that paying compensation is doing a favour but it should be seen from the perspective of doing it for work done.
“So it is not in any way doing a favour when a worker works to earn a living and should therefore be seen from that perspective.
“We have heard the argument where our governors are saying that workers are a tiny minority; I do not know the tiny minority among the political class and the working class. If governors who are custodians of the people’s welfare can say that, what do you expect from the players in the unorganised private sector?
“They are the tiny minority because how can you say that our workers, the police, the armed forces that without them they cannot sleep with their eyes closed are the tiny minority, therefore should not be entitled to their pay with dignity?”
System not fair to core civil servants
On his part, the TUC boss said the compensation system as engendered by the commission in the public service over the years has not been fair to core civil servants as against other public servants in parastatals.
According to him, “As the President, TUC, I am aware that the unfair salary structure in the public service has been of great concern for our members who serve as the engine room at all levels of government.
“For instance, there are so many salary structures in the public service and of all the structures in existence, which concerns the civil service is the lowest.
“Very recently, the salary of the Police was reviewed upwards and when you look at the upper echelon of the police and see what is going on there as compared to the upper echelon of the civil service, the gap is just too wide.
“It’s therefore becoming extremely difficult to explain the reasons for these imbalances in salary structures.
“You may be surprised to know that in some agencies and parastatals of government, junior officers earn as much as N200,000 per month while officers in the directorate level in core ministries that supervise these parastatals receive less than that.”
He said the Congress has packaged a memorandum on salary review for core civil servants and had submitted same to the federal government for action.
Unapproved salary attracts punishment
Also speaking, the SGF, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, General Services Office, Mr Olusegun Adekunle, said any public office-holder who pays himself above the approved salary would be punished. He was however silent on the issue of sheer disparity raised by the TUC boss.
Commission admit flaws
The former Chairman of National Salaries Income and Wages Commission, High Chief Richard Egbule, during a retreat of the steering committee on reform of disparity in public service pay admitted that the issue of disparity in public service had always generated a lot of emotion that agitate the minds of many labour unions.
He said, “Perhaps, it should be stated clearly that pay disparity is often times found to be the tinder box that ignites the perennial inter-occupational conflicts and contestations in public service.
“More broadly, of all the controversial issues that are prevalent in the work place, one of the most serious is pay disparity. When, for instance, two persons, equally qualified, perform the same occupational tasks but are paid differently, it is considered a disparity. “However, for pay disparity to be acceptable there must be a justifiable reason that one party should earn more than the other.”
Apart from disparities in the private sector, Egbule said within the public service alone, it was discovered as at 1998, there were a plethora of salary structures in the federal public service numbering 35.
“These are different from the five approved sectorally-based salary structures in such like Harmonised Top Political Office Holders Salary Structure which is for politicians; Harmonised Public Service Salary Structure for workers in places like the NNPC, CBN and others; Harmonised Armed Forces Salary Structure for men of the military; Harmonised Police and Paramilitary Salary Structure for those in that category and finally Harmonised Tertiary Institutions Salary Structure for workers in higher educational institutions.”
What is of most concern remains that while there was a sort of regulation for remuneration in the public service, the private sector workers are left at the mercy of their employers.
