Minimum wage: Labour warns gov’nors over sack threat
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has vowed not to bow to the threat by governors to sack workers over the proposed N30,000 minimum wage.
Reacting to the latest position of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) that states would either go bankrupt or sack workers if forced to pay N30,000 minimum wage, President of the NLC Ayuba Wabba yesterday said in a statement that workers could not be intimidated.
“The threat to sack workers is not new in the struggle for review of the national minimum wage in Nigeria. Therefore, the current one by the Governor of Zamfara State cannot be used to intimidate labour.”
Wabba, who dismissed the sack threat as an old trick, cautioned President Muhammadu Buhari to be wary of those who wanted to present him as an anti workers leader.
NLC leader warned that the consequences of workers retrenchment were too grievous for any political office holder truly elected by the people to contemplate and declared that “since a few political office holders are bent on enslaving Nigerian workers with peanuts mislabeled as salaries, we urge such elected public officials to subject their humongous salaries and allowances, reputed to be among the highest in the world, pro rata with the minimum wage they want to force down the throats of Nigerian workers.
“We, therefore, urge each state governor to go to their respective states and inform workers and their families their individual position on the new national minimum wage of N30,000”.
The Sun
