In light of the nation’s rising inflation, the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, has recommended that the Federal Government establish a system for the annual evaluation of wages, particularly the minimum wage.
It has been reported that this was revealed by Ajaero in Abuja on Monday during the 2nd National Labour Adjudication and Arbitration Forum, which was hosted by the National Employers Consultative Association (NECA).
The NLC President stated: “No matter what amount you negotiate in the present Nigerian economy, it can’t buy a bag of rice in the next five years.” He was speaking about the impact of galloping inflation on the earnings of Nigerian workers.
He said, “There is a need to tinker with the law providing for five yearly renegotiations of the national minimum wage to allow for a yearly adjustment of wages based on the level of inflation and value of the naira.
This is important because people have been coming up to say that if we increase salaries, it will affect inflation, but should we keep salaries constant while other variables continue to grow?”
The NLC president disclosed that workers are angry about how poorly the government is enforcing the wage award, claiming that N35,000 that was agreed upon a year ago is still not being paid. According to Ajaero, federal government employees still had not received their January salary.
Ajaero questioned why the President removed the fuel subsidy in less than twenty-four hours but could not decide how to mitigate its effects eight months later.
“It took you 24 hours to say fuel subsidy is gone and is taking you more than eight months to decide what to do with it, and you are telling us to give you more time. It took 24 hours to remove fuel subsidy, but after more than eight months, no single CNG bus is on the road,” he said.
