Labour opposes wage deregulation by National Assembly

The organised labour says it is going to slug it out with the National Assembly if it goes ahead as proposed to remove wage and labour matters from the Exclusive Legislative List which allows only the central government to determine national minimum wage for workers in the country.

Already, the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) has signaled intention to join forces with the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) for a showdown over the issue.

The National Assembly is proposing to decentralise wage matters by moving it from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent List to allow both federal and state governments legislate differently on wages and other labour issues. Where this happens, there will no longer be one nationally acceptable minimum wage as presently obtains. Nigeria’s national current minimum wage is N18,000.

Bobboi Kaigama, president and Alade Lawal, secretary general of the ASCSN, who spoke in Lagos, on Wednesday, called for a total resistance of the move by the federal lawmakers “to further impoverish Nigerian workers by outlawing the meagre National Minimum Wage through the backdoor.”

“We urge the trade union movement, the civil society groups, religious leaders, royal fathers, and other well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the National Assembly to reverse its decision to deregulate wages in the interest of peace in the country.

“It is surprising that the National Assembly wants to complicate the security challenge in the country by inviting millions of Nigerian workers to take to the streets by its insensitive decision to deregulate wage,” they said.

The labour leaders lamented that the monthly take-home pay of each federal lawmaker is about N30 million, yet they are pained that Nigerian workers receive N18,000 monthly minimum wage which is about $109 per month.

They argued that “the federal lawmakers are entitled to innumerable allowances such as hardship, furniture, wardrobe, recess, accommodation, utilities, domestic, entertainment, personal assistant, vehicle maintenance, leave, severance allowances, etc.

“It is also on record that the Nigerian federal lawmakers are the highest paid in the world earning more than the president of the United States of America.

“We urge the states Assemblies not to join the National Assembly in its war against Nigerian workers. They should, therefore, retain wage and other related labour issues in the Exclusive Legislative List.”

The ASCSN leaders added that apart from jumbo pay packets, a Nigerian senator receives N45 million constituency allowance while a member of the House of Representative gets N27 million quarterly allocation, saying, “it is important to note that Nigeria does not belong to political office holders alone but to all Nigerians including workers.”