Workers deserve new minimum wage

The International Workers’ Day, also known as Labour Day, was celebrated throughout the world yesterday, May 1. Workers’ Day is a national holiday in most nations. It was first chosen to be International Workers Day in commemoration of the 4th May 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago when four workers who were demonstrating during a general […]

The International Workers’ Day, also known as Labour Day, was celebrated throughout the world yesterday, May 1. Workers’ Day is a national holiday in most nations. It was first chosen to be International Workers Day in commemoration of the 4th May 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago when four workers who were demonstrating during a general strike were killed by police. We congratulate Nigerian workers for soldering on with their duties under very trying conditions.
In declaring today as a public holiday to mark workers’ day, Minister of the Interior Abdulrahman Dambazau commended the Nigerian worker for “hard work and commitment to the change mantra” while asking them to re-dedicate themselves to the service of the nation. Last year when he was still President-elect, President Muhammad Buhari said in a May Day message that he was fully aware of the fact that workers’ hardships were compounded by poor governance and corruption. He said honest labour had been relegated to the background and quick wealth was replacing honesty, and that his incoming government would boost the morale of the Nigerian worker.
After one year in office, the new regime has not achieved much in this regard. For the Nigerian worker this year’s Workers’ Day was celebrated amidst excruciating pains occasioned by fuel scarcity, power shortages and epileptic salary payment in many states. Nor do workers look forward to a life in retirement because pensioners often go for months or years without being paid their dues. Casualization of labour and contract staffing have replaced so many jobs which were formerly secured. It is not unusual to find workers who have been working in the same place “casually” for over 10 years!
With all these problems, May Day celebrations have evolved into a jamboree involving marches, sloganeering and speech making rather than sober reflection of the worsening condition of Nigerian workers. Over the years trade unions in Nigeria have been weakened ideologically and organizationally, with detrimental effects on the Nigerian worker. massive retrenchment without adequate compensation, indecent conditions in many work environments, salaries below the minimum wage in the private sector and various other violations of workers’ rights have become commonplace. Most Nigerian workers no longer see Trade Unions as being beneficial to their welfare and feel they derive no benefit from payment of union dues. The Unions appear to be doing little to organize defenceless workers in many workplaces who need a platform on which to defend their collective interests.
With days to May Day, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) put forward a demand for a new minimum wage of N56,000 per month. NLC’s President Comrade Ayuba Wabba said under the law, the national minimum wage must be renegotiated every five years between government, trade unions and organised private sector. He also showed how, since 2010, the N18,000 minimum wage has sharply deteriorated in value due to hyper inflation and naira depreciation. TUC President Bobboi Kaigama added that the demand for N56,000 is “moderate” because going by current economic realities, Nigerian workers should be demanding between N90,000 and N100,000 per month as minimum wage.
Reasonable and responsible though labour’s demand for a new minimum wage is, it comes at a time when many state governments are unable to pay their current wage bills. Still, we support the argument that the Change mantra in Nigeria will be unrealistic if workers are paid a salary that is almost laughable. Governments and the private sector are worried that they may not afford to pay a higher salary. But then, we believe that the overall increase in payrolls should be minimised because if a new minimum wage is adopted, we should depart from the old system of correspondingly hiking the salaries of all other grades of workers by the same margin. This is what makes the payrolls to become difficult to manage.