We Will Resist Governor’s Moves On Payment Of Minimum Wage – Labour

Following plans by many state governors to domesticate the national minimum wage according to how much they can pay, organised labour has vowed to resist the moves, even as they called on President Bola Tinubu and the National Assembly to stop the state governors from truncating the Federal Law binding payment of the national minimum wage.

The first deputy president of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Comrade Etim Okon, who stated this in a chat with LEADERSHIP Sunday chided the state governors for trying to adopt the divide and rule style in the matter that is under the exclusive list.

According to him, since the labour matter is under the exclusive list meant only for the federal government to deliberate on, President Tinubu and members of the National Assembly should prevail on the state governors and remind them that they cannot create their own minimum wage outside the one agreed by the federal government.

He blamed those state governors for toying with the welfare of their workers and making fresh efforts to subject them to slave wages that cannot keep them afloat in view of the prevailing economic realities in the country.

Dr Okon, who is also the president of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), said Labour will resist that move because states have no power to legislate on their own minimum wage outside the one agreed by the federal government.

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“State governors cannot create their own wage; they should pay what is approved by the federal government. Those governors should remember that the wage being worked upon remains a tripartite one.

In the same vein, the NLC has expressed their rejection of the move, stressing that the state governors are only trying to dictate against what the federal law has spelt out.

The head, Information and Public Affairs, Comrade Benson Upah while making the stand of NLC known, said the plan by those governors is dictatorial in nature.

Benson wondered why those state governors did not exit the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission uniform-salary being paid to political officeholders.