National minimum wage: Labour set to battle Senate

On Tuesday, 16th, July 2013, the Senate voted to move the National Minimum Wage from the Exclusive to the Concurrent List of the constitution in their attempt to review the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Moving the National Minimum Wage from the Exclusive List to the Concurrent List means individual state governments will […]

On Tuesday, 16th, July 2013, the Senate voted to move the National Minimum Wage from the Exclusive to the Concurrent List of the constitution in their attempt to review the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Moving the National Minimum Wage from the Exclusive List to the Concurrent List means individual state governments will determine whatever they pay their workers and there are genuine fears that without a benchmark fixed by the Federal Government, some state governors will definitely cut by half or even less the current minimum wage as monthly salary for their workers.     
Expectedly, this has generated a lot of reaction, mostly adversarial, even as those opposing it continue to hinge their hope on the House of Representatives not concurring with the Senate “in order to save the Nigerian people.”
At the forefront of this agitation and a possible future battle is the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) that called a press conference last Thursday condemning the Senate’s decision and putting Nigerians on alert for possible battle.
The press statement which was jointly signed by President of the NLC Comrade Abdulwahed Omar and his counterpart in the TUC Comrade Bobboi Kaigama entitled “a conscienceless senate” accused the senators of being anti people and selfish.
Omar, who read the press statement lamented that even though public hearings conducted by the National Assembly across the all the local governments of the country showed an overwhelming support for the Federal Government to continue to determine minimum wage, the Senate “went against the people.”
While describing the decision as scandalous, he said, “Never in the history of this country, not even in the military era, have we witnessed such a charade and travesty on the popular wish of the people as was displayed by the Senate.
“Also, a vital segment of the society-private sector-has been completely been left out. Are we saying that the private sector can now do as they like in terms of remuneration to its workers?”
He blamed the senators for giving  in to pressure from selfish and self serving state governors, “of whom, remnants of them could be found taking refuge in the Senate after looting state coffers and exploiting workers.”
He added that the senators, “without recourse to history and basic appreciation of global practices…assumed that a minimum wage is a wage review normally carried out by federal and state governments, oblivious of the historical and global concept of minimum wage being a benchmark to ensure that vulnerable workers, particularly the unorganised and unskilled are not unduly exploited by ravenous, selfish and greedy employers and money bags.”
He added that the senators, “by their misguided action, have not only inadvertently excluded private sector workers from the minimum wage, but grossly violated International Labour Organisation (ILO) Minimum Wage Fixing Convention 131, which the country is signatory to.”  
Organised labour accused governors of manipulating and instigating the senators, who it said are deemed to be the representatives of the people into taking a decision that will further pauperise Nigerians.
“The argument of the now embattled Governors Forum flaunted during negotiations on the National Minimum Wage, which the senators have now accepted hook, line and sinker was that the setting of minimum wage by the Federal Government violated the principle of true federalism.
“To all intent and purposes, this is ill-informed and at best infantile. They have not only confused themselves with the need as representatives of the people to protect the most susceptible and defenseless workers, but naively politicised the minimum wage with fiscal federalism.
“If fiscal or financial autonomy were the issue, private firms would not be brought under minimum wage laws anywhere in the world. For example, the Senate needed to be educated that of 194 countries responding on the issue as at 2011, 173 have minimum wage regimes in line with global standards,” organised labour said.
While accusing the Senate of shrouding the entire minimum wage process in secrecy, exclusivity and conspiracy, the  organised labour expressed disappointment at the action of the Senate to encourage continued exploitation of workers and the Nigerian people.
 “What an irony! In one breath, the Senate proposed decentralisation of minimum wage against the people of Nigeria eroding the earning power of vulnerable workers and at the same time gleefully and overwhelmingly voted for life pension for the leadership of the Senate!”
However, the NLC and the TUC as well as their civil society counterparts rest their hope on the House of Representatives which they say has so far, conducted the whole process with “tremendous amount of openness and transparency.”
They said,  “It may interest the Senate to know that views expressed in the constituency consultations painstakingly carried out by their counterparts in the House that rejected removal of the minimum wage from the Exclusive to Concurrent List, was later collated with the labour movement and all stakeholders present and the outcome transparently seen by all.
“That the Senate could go against the popular wish of the people speaks volumes of the electoral process that brought some of them to office. Rather than serve the people who elected them, our senators have become arrogant and self serving in the interest of capital and money bags.
“To us, as is the practice globally, constitution amendment should be made a process led approach and a bottom up exercise. Short changing the will of the people through ‘voting’ that deprives workers and working families their hard won and collective patrimony obliterates the very essence of legislature as the mouth piece of the people.”
They added that the attempt to alter the jurisdiction of minimum wage legislation is an aberration to their  quest for democratic governance to reflect people’s aspiration, as it has turned a supposed people’s institution as the Senate into iron law of oligarchy.
In looking up to the House of Representatives, organised labour charges it “as the last bastion of our representative governances to side with the people, as they have always done; to ensure that the minimum wage remains in the Exclusive List to protect poor working families against the vagaries of thoughtless and rabid neo-liberal economic policies.”
Many Nigerians who spoke on the matter expressed deep worries with the route the Senate has taken and have vowed to resist what majority called “a wicked act.”