President Bola Tinubu is set to unveil wage awards next week as a measure to mitigate the impact of the petrol subsidy removal on workers.
The move follows persistent appeals from the labor movement, including the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), for wage awards to cushion the effects of the subsidy removal before the negotiation of a new minimum wage next year.
Comrade Festus Osifo, the President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), disclosed this development during an interview on Channels Television’s “Politics Today” program on Tuesday night.
TUC had given the federal government a two-week ultimatum to address its demands or face potential industrial action from workers nationwide.
Osifo revealed that the Minister of Labour and Employment, Simon Lalong, had engaged with President Tinubu and the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, on the matter.
According to Osifo, Lalong informed the union that the issue of wage awards had been reviewed, and President Tinubu would make an official announcement in the coming days.
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“The minister of labour told us that he had an audience with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the minister of finance and had reviewed the issue of wage award but that the president asked them to fine-tune the issues before he makes the announcement.
“The minister told us all these issues would be streamlined but because the president has travelled, we should give him an extra two weeks. We said no; we don’t have an extra two weeks to give. After more discussions, he said the president would make a proper announcement next week.”
Osifo said the union had engaged the federal government on the palliatives released to states, adding that “we are going to monitor distribution of palliatives in states to make sure the scheme is implemented appropriately.
”We want to see the template of the implementation which is why we engaged the federal government on this issue. We also raised issues around taxation and CNG (Compressed Natural Gas).”
On NLC two-week warning strike, Osifo said the union did not back out of it, saying it didn’t agree to participate in the first place.
Recall that NLC president had in an interview on Channels Television’s ”Politics Today” programme on Monday, said the TUC couldn’t have backed out of a strike it did not call.
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“The NLC will not take under our watch if we give a strike notice and then a union that didn’t give a strike notice says they are backing out of a strike that they didn’t call for,” NLC president, Joe Ajaero, had said.
But TUC President Festus Osifo, in a follow-up interview on Tuesday, rejected the notion that it had shared any intention to go ahead with the strike.
“No, we never backed out from the strike we did not call,” Osifo said, explaining that before announcing a strike, the protocol was for one union to reach out to the other for a conversation, leading to strategies between both.
He said: “In that plan, there are a lot of things that are looked at. You define your clear-cut strategy; you define the timing.“
