The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has threatened to shut down the country for a month should the National Assembly deregulate the minimum wage.
According to organised labour, a Joint Committee of the National Assembly and the Judiciary is meeting to fashion out modalities for removing minimum wage from the exclusive legislative list to the concurrent legislative list so that state governments can legislate on it.
The NLC argued that this would allow state governments to pay workers “slave wages”, vowing to resist the National Assembly’s move.
NLC President, Joe Ajaero said this at the 67th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of NLC in Lagos on Tuesday.
He said, “As we are here, a Joint Committee of the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Judiciary are meeting.
“They have decided to remove section 34 from the Exclusive legislative list to the concurrent list so that the state governors can determine what to pay you and so that there will be no minimum wage again. You cannot decide what you should earn.
“The very moment the House of Representatives and the Senate come up with such a law that will not benefit Nigerian workers, they will be their drivers and gatemen, and there will be no movement for one month.
“We cannot accept any situation where the governors and the National Assembly members will foist a slave wage on workers and force poverty on the citizens. Organised Labour will not accept it.”
Daily Sun reported that President Bola Tinubu will be meeting labour leaders again on Thursday, July 18 to reach a consensus on a new minimum wage, a week after a similar meeting at the State House, Abuja.
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