Organised labour has lowered its demand for N1m minimum wage for workers in the country.
A second meeting of the tripartite committee on the minimum wage is set to be held on Monday and Tuesday.
The meeting would enhance deliberations between all parties involved in negotiations to allow for the announcement of a new minimum wage on or before April 1 following the expiration of the current N30,000 minimum wage as provided by the law.
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Recall that in May 2017, the House of Representatives moved to amend the National Minimum Wage Act for a compulsory review of workers’ remuneration every five years.
The Minimum Wage Act of 2019 signed by former President Muhammadu Buhari empowers the committee to deliberate and come up with an agreed wage, which will be eventually ratified by the National Assembly after due legislative scrutiny.
Buhari had also signed the Minimum Wage Act that approved N30,000 for both federal and state workers in the same year.
Chief Bola Tinubu, through his deputy, Kashim Shettima, had on January 30, 2024, inaugurated a 37-member panel on the new minimum wage at the Council Chamber of the State House in Abuja
Membership cutting across the federal and state governments, the private sector, and organised labour, the panel is to recommend a new national minimum wage for the country.
In his opening address at the inauguration, Shettima urged members to “speedily” arrive at a resolution and submit a report early as the current N30,000 minimum wage expires at the end of next month.
“The timely submission (of the report) is crucial to ensure the emergence of a new minimum wage,” Shettima said.
Also, recall that Tinubu announced the discontinuance of fuel subsidy on May 29, 2023, which triggered a sharp rise in the general cost of living.
Although the administration approved an additional N35,000 wage award for six months starting from September 2023 to alleviate the impact of the subsidy removal, the organised labour maintained that this was only a provisional solution and called for a complete review of the minimum wage.
Chairing the panel is a former Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Bukar Aji, who at the inauguration affirmed that its members would come up with a “fair, practical, implementable and sustainable” minimum wage.
The inauguration of the committee follows months of agitation from organised labour, which expressed concerns over the Federal Government’s failure to inaugurate the new national minimum wage committee as promised during negotiations last October.