The Federal Capital Territory, Cross River, Nasarawa, Ebonyi, Kaduna, and Zamfara states factions of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) may go on strike on Monday (today), unless state authorities agree to pay the N70,000 new minimum salary.
Though the implementation panels established by the concerned states have been meeting with labour leaders in an attempt to avert the strike action, the various state chapters of the Nigeria Labour Congress have stated their willingness to go on strike beginning today.
The FCT Council of the NLC had already urged workers in the six Area Councils to go on indefinite strike on December 1 until additional instructions were delivered.
Stephen Knabayi, Chairman of the NLC’s FCT Council, signed a letter on Saturday containing this information.
This follows the NLC leadership’s direction to workers in 14 states and the FCT to begin industrial action on Sunday over the failure to implement the new minimum wage.
Knabayi criticised the area council chairmen for failing to respond to the demand for the adoption of the minimum wage after receiving the National Executive Council of the NLC’s communique dated November 14, 2024.
The Nasarawa State chapter of the NLC warned on Sunday that it was ready to go on strike if the minimum wage was not paid.
Ismaila Okoh, the state NLC chairman, revealed that all labour members had received a strike notification.
He did, however, reveal that the Nasarawa State government had struck an arrangement with the union to pay the workers N70,500, but that no document had been signed to ensure its implementation.
He said, “We have notified all our members to embark on a strike tomorrow (today) because of the non-implementation of the national minimum wage in the state.
“Although the minimum wage committee set up by the state government has agreed to start paying N70,500, no document has been signed to that effect up till this moment.
“So, we are observing the situation to see if the documents on the minimum wage will be signed before tomorrow morning. However, if nothing is done between now and midnight, our members will have to fully comply with the strike as they were directed.”
To avoid a shutdown, the Kaduna State Government announced it has begun implementing the new national minimum wage, with the state’s lowest-paid worker getting N72,000 as gross compensation in November.
It was gathered that many states agreed to pay above the N70,000 minimum wage, with Kaduna State offering its workers N72,000 as minimum wage.
Despite the good developments, the state chapter of the NLC has announced its planned strike.
Ayuba Suleiman, the state chairman of the NLC, announced that the workers would go on strike as directed by the NLC leadership. He said, “Yes, we are set for the strike.”
However, Ibraheem Musa, Governor Uba Sani’s Chief Press Secretary, stated on Sunday that it was “a misrepresentation for the NLC to claim that the state has defaulted in the payment of the new minimum wage.”
Musa mentioned that the state government had complied with the letter of the National Minimum Wage Law.
“His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Kaduna State, Senator Uba Sani, has complied with the spirit and letter of the National Minimum Wage Law by paying the lowest-paid civil servant N72,000 last month,” he said.
He noted that the NLC had been advocating for substantial modifications, but the state administration contended that there was a distinction between salary increases and the minimum wage.
Musa said that the state government got an average of N8 billion from the Federal Allocation and generated approximately N4 billion every month, for a total of N12 billion in revenue.
However, he stated that since the adoption of the minimum wage, the monthly wage bill has climbed from N5.4bn to N6.3bn, including an N4bn reduction for loan payments each month.
This, he added, left barely N2 billion for rural development, healthcare, education, and other state-provided services.
“It will be unfair for the Kaduna State Government to spend almost all its revenue on consequential adjustments after paying the mandatory minimum wage.
“There are over 10 million people who are also entitled to the accrued revenue of Kaduna State. There are 84,827 civil servants in the state. So, it is unreasonable for the government to spend over 90 percent of its revenue on just about one percent of the population,” he added.
Musa called on the NLC to exercise patience over the consequential adjustments, pending when the state government’s revenue improved.
“Governor Uba Sani is labour-friendly. He has demonstrated this by providing buses for civil servants to commute to work free of charge, as part of the palliatives to cushion the prevailing economic challenges,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Oguguo Egwu, Chairman of the NLC in Ebonyi State, revealed that state workers have been asked to join the ongoing industrial action beginning today.
According to him, the warning strike, which would last one week, is the result of Governor Francis Nwifuru’s refusal to implement the new national minimum wage.
He said, “Talking about the new national minimum wage as it concerns Ebonyi State, our governor on September 11 at the Ojiji festival of Izzi Kingdom announced the new minimum wage of N70,000, and we are all aware of that.
“We were very happy and excited that Ebonyi would be among the first states to implement the wage. But subsequently, there was no communication and no information.
“And we heard that the governor wanted to implement the national minimum wage without any due process of collective bargaining where both the workers and government angle would meet to agree on the consequential adjustment.”
Furthermore, the Zamfara State NLC secretary, Ahmed Abubakar, said workers in the state had yet to receive the new minimum wage and as such had no alternative but to join the strike.
He said, “We are going to join the strike as directed by the national body of our great union to express our anger over the non-payment of the new minimum wage.”
However, Abubakar stated that the union would continue to consult with the state government on the matter. Cross River organised labour is preparing for a strike due to the state’s failure to enforce the new minimum wage policy.
Gregory Ulayi, the Cross River State Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), has announced that the union will go on indefinite strike if the state government fails to implement the new minimum wage for workers.
However, late on Sunday night, the state administration secured an arrangement with the state chapters of the NLC and TUC to pay its workers the N70,000 wage.
Calls to the NLC and TUC officials to elucidate whether the state workers would still embark on a strike were not answered as of the time of filing this report.
