The organized labour in Nigeria is set to engage the federal government on a total wage review for workers in the country.
This was disclosed by the President of the Trade Union Congress, Qadri Olaleye, who noted that the total wage review was long overdue.
Naija News recalls the federal government led by President Muhammadu Buhari in April 2019, signed the new minimum wage bill into law.
It is however understood that the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, had told labour leaders during the 2019 negotiations that the government had set up a committee on total wage review.
Ngige had noted that the total wage review was not the same as minimum wage.
During an interview with Punch on Thursday, TUC President, Olaleye confirmed that the idea of total wage review came up during the negotiation.
In his words, “If you go through the history of the minimum wage negotiation, while we mounted pressure on the Federal Government, the minister only inadvertently mentioned the plan for total wage review by the Federal Government. He said the minimum wage was not the same thing as total wage review.
“The truth is that we used the wage review issue to put more pressure on government.
“We have yet to follow up on the matter since we successfully used it as an instrument to pressure government to accept our demands on the new minimum wage implementation.”
He added that the agitation for a total wage review will be resuscitated and that a letter would be sent to the minister on the issue by the leadership of the union.
He said, “We will send a letter to the FG through the minister to remind the authorities that wage review is due and needed to be looked into, just as the minister said during the minimum wage negotiation. We might send the letter next week.”
