…Says Tinubu is committed to meeting demands of organised labour
Minister of Labour and Employment, Nkiruka Onyejeocha, has said that the Federal Government cannot conclude with organised labour without considering the input of the state, local governments and the organised private sector.
Speaking on the Channels Television programme, Politics Today, Onyejeocha said the Federal Government cannot impose minimum wage on other organs that made up the tripartite committee on the National Minimum Wage.
The Minister said President Bola Tinubu is determined to meet the demands of the organised labour and urged them to shelve their strike and return to the negotiations table.
“The federal government cannot impose salaries on governors, local governments, and the organised private sector. All these entities have the level of what they can pay and if they say they cannot pay a certain amount, can the Federal Government force it on them?
“We have the organised private sector, local government, state government, and federal government on the other side, as well as the organised labour.
“The organised labour has seen the implication of the strike and everybody is asking them to come back to the negotiating table because this strike doesn’t look good for a country that is recovering. It doesn’t look good for a country that the President has decided to make a lot of changes and he has started making those changes.”
Onyejeocha said Nigerians are suffering as a result of the strike. According to her, an industrial action is not the way out of the issues of the new minimum wage.
“We are negotiating and we have not concluded before labour walked out and that is not in the spirit of social dialogue. The truth of the matter is that we believe that we have entered a negotiation and all the parties should be patient to make sure that we conclude the negotiation.
“I believe that having experienced what took place today, the national grid was affected and of course people are still stranded in our airports and you know what it is. People have already suffered a lot of setbacks and hardship because of the strike that took place this morning.
“So, naturally it brought hardship to the citizens of this country and the natural thing to do is for labour to suspend its decision and come back to the negotiation table because strike is the last option.
“We shouldn’t have a strike at all because we know what the issues are and we are available for discussions, negotiations and we believe that there is nothing that cannot be resolved but going on strike is taking the matter to the extreme, which is, of course, having negative implications to both our economy and welfare of the citizens.
“One of the implications of this strike is that citizens will suffer and they have started suffering. For instance, children who are writing exams, I know it affects them because if you come out in the morning and you do not find transport to go to your exam centre, then you are not going to take the exam.
“What it simply means is that most students are going to miss one academic year, which is bad. On the other hand, some people cannot eat until they go to their workplaces; those people are not going to eat because they live daily on what they can get from their work.
“On the production side, you know that when the economy and activities are shut down, it is going to affect everything that makes an economy thrive. So, businesses would be affected and even hospitals,” she said.
