May Day: Fresh strike looms over minimum wage

Organised Labour has asked workers in the states where governors were yet to implement the new minimum wage to immediately begin an indefinite strike.

In a joint address to Nigerian workers to mark this year’s celebration, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress, TUC, at the Eagle Square, Abuja, directed workers in the state where governors were not paying the minimum wage to immediately down tools and immediately, begin an indefinite strike.

In their May Day address titled: ‘COVID-19, Social and Economic Crises: Challenges for Decent Work, Social Protection and Peoples Welfare’, jointly read by the President of NLC, Ayuba Wabba, and his TUC counterpart, Quadiri Olaleye, they said: “We demand an upward review of salary of core civil servants to narrow the gap between their emoluments and those of employees in other segments of the public service. We implore the federal government to once more direct the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation to set up a committee to undertake this review.”

On N30,000 national minimum wage, the labour leaders added, “For Nigerian workers, it has been a catalogue of workplace and trade union rights violations. First is the criminal refusal by some state governors to pay the new national minimum wage and consequential increase in salaries thus violating workers’ rights. We have already directed all our state councils to declare strike actions if any governor remains adamant about paying the new national minimum wage.”

International Workers’ Day, also known as  May Day, is a celebration of  labourers  and the  working classes  that is promoted by the international  labour movement  and occurs every year on  May 1.

This year’s event is coming at a time when labour is facing enormous challenges due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

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