Minimum Wage: FG, Labour Meeting ends in deadlock
The negotiation meeting between the Federal Government and the organised labour on the Consequential Adjustment on the new minimum wage was last night adjourned to today.
Already both the Federal Government and the organised have adjusted their positions on the Consequential Adjustment. While the federal government has offered to make consequential movement of workers from Grade Level 7-14 to 17 percent from its initial 11 percent and 12 percent for Grade Level 15-17 from 6.5 percent, the organized labour also shifted its position of 29 percent for consequential movement of GL-7-14 to 25 percent and 20 percent for GL15-17 from 25 percent. The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige at the end of the meeting said that discussion will continue today as a result of exigency of the time.
Also speaking, the Deputy President of NLC, Comrade Amechi Asugwuni said, “Negotiation is still ongoing even though we actually thought negotiations will be concluded today but we can’t predict the negotiations, therefore, adjournment became necessary. ” To the best of our knowledge, the struggle will still continue. Tomorrow (today), we will meet by 2 pm and that meeting will also determine fate. I pray we will close that meeting positively. “So far, commitment has been shown but we believe that the areas that are still in the contest are critical. Therefore, we want the government to see how they can shift ground positively in order to mitigate the agitation ahead.”
The Head of Service, Dr. Folashade Yemi-Essan said,” We’ve had very fruitful deliberations so far. The labour side has discovered that there is just one side of the welfare of workers and both sides made a lot of concessions. “But we discovered that there are some grey areas that need to be ironed out. Some documents and information are being sorted out which we are providing and by Grace of God tomorrow discussions will continue and we believe that we will be able to get everything resolved.”
