Yesterday, The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) said the organised labour expects the president, Mohammadu Buhari to send the bill for the new minimum wage to the National Assembly for passage into law within the next two weeks.
While speaking to THISDAY on telephone, the General Secretary of the NLC, Mr. Peter Essom, said labour expects speedy transmission of the outcome of the negotiations to the legislature without further waste of time, warning that any delay could attract a reaction from workers.
“We insist that a bill reflecting the agreement reached at the tripartite negotiations be forwarded to the National Assembly as soon as possible; that is what we are standing on. If that is not done within a reasonable time, then you will hear from us,” he said.
On what would amount to a reasonable time for the organised labour under the circumstances, Essom said, “We will determine what reasonable time is; remember that the NLC President had indicated that within a period of two weeks, we expect this bill to be forwarded to the National Assembly. So let us wait and see. When we believe that there is an unnecessary delay in the process, we will take decisions needed to be taken and we will communicate to members of the public,” he said.
The NLC scribe said that labour was appealing to President Buhari to expedite action on the proposed new national minimum wage by transmitting it to the National Assembly in good time.
According to him, the Tripartite Committee on the New National Minimum Wage had concluded its meetings and a report on N30,000 minimum wage agreed upon, stating that the government now need to take the right action.
“We all signed up on the N30,000, so why should there be any controversy. The report has been submitted to Mr. President and what we expect now from Mr. President is to do justice to that report, by quickly raising an executive bill on the new National Minimum Wage. And when that bill gets to the National Assembly, we want to assure Nigerian workers that we will be ready to engage them constructively,’’ he said.
