The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, on Thursday, frowned on the non-completion of negotiations on a new minimum wage for Nigerian workers and urged the Federal Government to fast-track action.
The TUC President, Comrade Festus Osifo, who made the call while briefing journalists after the National Executive Council of the Labour movement, ruled out the possibility of having a new minimum wage in place before the end of May.
TUC also lamented that some states in the Niger Delta region that collect huge sums of money from the Federation Account among others had paid neither the wage awards nor palliatives to their workers.
He singled out Delta, Imo and Benue states as the worst culprits.
Lamenting the lukewarm attitude of some state governors in the payment of wage awards and distributing palliatives to the workers, TUC said, “There is no gainsaying the fact that today, we are facing economic hardship and based on this, at the federal level, we engaged the Federal Government as you are aware, from last year, which culminated in the signing of the communique on October 2, 2023.
“And after that communique was signed, we also empowered our respective state councils to follow up with their state government to ensure two things. One, put in place palliative. Palliative is for the immediate, palliative is not a permanent solution to the economic downturn that we are facing today as a country, palliative could solve immediate challenges, but it will not be able to meet them in the long run. Palliative cannot solve our problems.
“So that is why we were also yearning for a sustainable and robust solution, a solution that would meet the yearnings of the Nigerian workers and indeed the Nigerian masses because that is why the governments are elected from the federal to the local government level.”
