Govt, Labour talks on new pay deadlocked

Posted by admin General Politics, Headlines, Latest Politics Monday, July 18th, 2011

Labour Minister, Wogu

HOPE of a truce that will stop tomorrow’s planned strike by organised Labour appeared to have fizzled out yesterday, as the meeting of the nation’s Labour union leaders and representatives of the Federal Government as well as other stakeholders failed to reach an agreement on the minimum wage imbroglio.

However, another round of talks is scheduled for today.

But private sector employers under the aegis of Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Forum (NECA) yesterday urged restraint on the part of government and Labour in the build up to a national three-day warning strike.

Also, top officials of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) yesterday told The Guardian that they were bracing up for the strike, with a view to halting fuel supply nationwide.

In another last-ditch move to placate the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Rivers State Governor and Chairman of the Governors’ Forum (GF), Chibuike Amaechi, has announced that his administration would immediately start to pay the N18,000 minimum wage to workers in the state.

In a related development, the leadership of the NLC in Abia State yesterday assured workers in the state that it was committed to realising the payment of the new minimum wage in the state.

Meanwhile, the Calabar Zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has resolved to back any strike action called by the central leadership of its union over “the unwillingness of government to sign the amended bill on the retirement age of academics.”

The zone made the resolution after its meeting at the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State, to review the passage of enabling law marking up the retirement age of academics from 65 to 70 years for those in the professorial cadre, among other issues.

After the meeting in Abuja yesterday, President, NLC, Abdulwaheed Omar, said progress was made in the course of the parley but declined to expantiate his claim.

He said: “Some level of progress was made today (yesterday) but we are meeting again tomorrow (today) to iron things out. I can say that there is hope but that is still not enough to stop the strike. When we meet again tomorrow, we will then know if the strike will go on or not.”

In his submission at the opening session of the parley, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Pius Anyim, said government understood the Minimum Wage Law to mean that no worker should earn below the N18,000 mark and not that the figure would reflect on the pay packet of all workers irrespective of cadres.

He disclosed that the 2011 federal budget was predicated on the payment of a minimum of N18,000 to workers who were hitherto earning below the figure.

Explaining that government might be unable to effect the payment to cover all categories of workers due to budgetary constraints, Anyim pleaded with labour to allow for shift of implementation date to next January.

The Federal Government scribe said the National Assembly has to make provision for the hike in the salaries of workers in the budget and that acting without a recourse to the budgetary provision would be running foul of the laws guiding government spending.

In his contribution, Amaechi appealed to Labour to shelve the strike “for the protection of the poor.”

He said: “We would like to appeal to labour to shelve this strike for the protection of the poor. If it goes ahead, it is the poor that will suffer because the rich will be able to afford whatever they need but the same cannot be said of the poor people who are in the majority.”

But these arguments did not make an impression on the President, TUC, Peter Esele, who argued that money to pay the workers could be found if government was willing to do it.

Esele cited how funds were sought for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), preparatory to the 2011 elections.

He said: “We will not wait till January next for the Minimum Wage to take effect. If government is willing, it can find ways around this except they are saying that Nigerian workers are not important.

“When we were preparing for the 2011 general elections, money was found for INEC to prepare for the polls. So, the manner in which INEC got money for the elections should be used for this. We reject any attempt at postponing the implementation of the minimum wage law beyond this year.”

But the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Emeka Wogu, said: “We find it extremely difficult to understand why a Labour issue in one sector of the economy should be turned into national strike that will affect other sectors of the economy. The TUC/NLC are respected institutions and we are not in doubt that the economy of Nigeria is bigger than the public sector.

“Organised Labour knows that government is an employer in the economy, but we cannot comprehend the rationale behind this national strike, given the sectoral nature of the issue at stake.

“If at all organised Labour considered it necessary to deploy strike to achieve its objectives one would want it to limit its action to the erring party rather than plunge the entire economy into crisis. We appeal to TUC/NLC for deep reflection on this issue and we also implore them to demonstrate restraints and responsibility in the way they use strike to pursue their objectives.”

National Secretary, PTD-NUPENG, Dayyabu Garga, said: “NUPENG is an affiliate of the Nigeria Labour Congress, so whatever decision taken by the leadership of NLC and the TUC is automatically bonded on our members.”

A source in PENGASSAN said: “We are working with the TUC and we are ready to comply with whatever directive given to us. Our leaders are presently in dialogue with the government and the outcome would determine our action. We don’t have different opinion on the issue; we are working collectively, and we will achieve our aims collectively.”

Speaking with the media at NECA House, Lagos, President of the association, Richard Uche, said rather than plunge the nation into a needless strike that could engender colossal economic loss, the parties should continue to dialogue.

Uche argued that if the impending strike must go on, it should be sector-specific and not national in outlook.

He also argued that since the private sector employers have started implementing the new wage ahead of the federal and state governments, their businesses should not be made to suffer from the looming strike, stressing that the action should be restricted to the public sector.

Uche noted that if the governors were part of the decision process leading to the passage of the new minimum wage bill accented to by President Goodluck Jonathan, the law should be binding on them, noting that a refusal to pay would amount to breaking the law.

However, he observed: “In view of the fact that the state governments have now come to declare their preparedness to obey the law, we see no reason why organised Labour should continue to threaten hell and brimstone.”

The NECA chief stated that if the National Minimum Wage specifically stated that only employers with staff strength of 50 and above should comply with the law, there was no basis for Labour to capture the informal sector in the net.

He said: “A review of our labour market would reveal that less than two per cent of the workforce in this economy operates in the formal sector, where the new minimum wage is most likely to have broad application. In effect, the bulk of the Nigeria workforce, which is in the micro- and small-scale businesses are not affected by the National Minimum Wage Act 2011.

“One could further deduce from this that organised Labour represents less than two per cent of the workforce in our economy. If these statistics are anything to go by, it then means that organised Labour, in view of this strike, would want to sacrifice the interest of the majority, whose employers are still prepared to cater for by implementing the new Minimum Wage Act.”

Uche, however, advised private sector employers not to be jittery over the proposed strike, saying: “They should direct their employees through their internal communication channels, as a matter of necessity, to report for work in spite of the NLC/TUC’s strike.

“They should make it abundantly clear to their employees that failure to report for work would attract sanctions based on their terms and conditions of employment.”

-Guardianwp_posts

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Posted by admin on Jul 18 2011. Filed under General Politics, Headlines, Latest Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry