‘Tinubu To Meet With Organized Labour Over New Minimum Wage’

President Bola Tinubu will meet with the Organised Labour in Abuja on Thursday to further discuss a new national minimum wage for workers in Nigeria.

Naija News reports that the Thursday meeting is coming about a month after the President said in his Democracy Day speech on June 12, 2024, that an executive bill on the new national minimum wage for workers would soon be sent to the National Assembly for passage.

Recall that on June 25, the Federal Executive Council (FEC), chaired by President Tinubu, stepped down issues of the new minimum wage from consideration and deliberation on the memo to allow for more engagement with stakeholders.

A top labour source who spoke with Channels Television said the President invited the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) for the meeting on Thursday.

The source said the meeting will be held at the Aso Villa in the nation’s capital city, and Tinubu is expected to decide on the ₦62,000 proposal of the government and private sector side, as well as the ₦250,000 demand of the Organised Labour.

Meanwhile, the President of the Trade Union Congress, Festus Osifo, has dismissed insinuations that the new national minimum wage negotiation is dead.

Naija News learnt that Osifo made this known on Tuesday, stating that the Federal Government is still conversing with all relevant stakeholders, including the Nigerian Governors Forum, Local Government Administrators, the Organised Private Sector and Labour Unions.

Osifo said the Unions still insist on the N250,000 demand it made to the government, which was part of the recommendations submitted to the President by the Presidential Tripartite Committee on New National Minimum Wage.

He referred to the existing minimum wage of N30,000, which took two years to be negotiated, assuring that the Tripartite Committee had made appreciable progress since January 2024, when negotiations started.