Minimum wage fireworks begins Thursday with public hearing

Fireworks between government, Labour and employers of Labour in the private sector will begin in Thursday a different centres across the country on a new national minimum wage for Nigerian workers both in the public and private sector.

For the first time since 1981 when the first national minimum wage act was enacted prescribing a wage of N125, Nigerian workers ad other stakeholders will be given the opportunity at a public hearing to make their own input.

Thus, a public hearing has been organised by the tripartite committee at eight different centres across the country. The Director in charge of media in the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Samuel Olowokoore said in a statement the public hearing is organised to ensure wilder consultation and ensure stakeholders participation in the review of the National Minimum wage.

The public hearing will take place in six zonal centres of Enugu, Port-Harcourt, Ibadan, Gombe, Kaduna, Lokoja as well as the cities of Abuja and Lagos which has been designated as special centres beginning from Thursday, 26th to 27th April 2018.

The statement ask Interested members of the public who wish to present memorandum to bring copies to the various venues of the public hearing.

The committee which has Ms Amal Pepple as the Chairman, and Sen. Chris Ngige, Hon. Minister of Labour and Employment as the Deputy Chairman comprises of members drawn from the Federal and State Government, the organized labour and Private sectors Employers Association.

In its memorandum to the committee, organised Labour is asking the government and employers of Labour to up the minimum wage pf the Nigerian worker to N66,500 for the least paid Nigerian worker. In the presentation jointly authored by the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress, cited international provisions guiding the civil duct of minimum wage to back their stand.

Conscious of argument by a section of Nigerians in losing the All Progressives Congress ( APC ) that minimum wage should not be centrally fixed, Labour claimed that discussing and fixing minimum wage centrally “will go a long way to satisfy the ILO provision on minimum wage which stipulates that minimum wage fixing should constitute element in a policy deserved to overcome poverty and to ensure the satisfaction of the needs of all workers and their families.”

According to them, “Article 3 of the ILO Minimum Wage convention 1970 (no 131) with specific reference to developing countries, the element to be taken into consideration in determining the level of minimum wage shall, so far as possible and appropriate in relation to national practice and conditions include (a) the need of workers and their families, taking into account the genera, level of wages in the country, the cost of living, social security benefits’ and the relative living standards of other social groups; (b) economic factors, including the requirements of desirability of attaining and maintaining a high level of employment.

“No 135 of the same convention says “minimum wage rates should be adjusted from time to time to take account of changes in the living and other economic conditions. To this end, a review might be carried out of minimum wage rates in relation to the cost of living and other economic conditions either at regular intervals or whenever such a review is considered appropriate in the light of variations in the cost of living index.”

It was gathered that organised Labour has directed all state councils of both the NLC and TUC to massively mobilize their members to participate in the public hearing, saying “Each state council and pensions union will be given opportunity to present the joint Labour prepared memorandum which will be sent to each state by the secretariat shortly. The host state councils are to mobilize at least 200 workers and Complimentry press coverage.”

The joint memorandum from organised Labour which The Nation cited tried to justify the slight increase in their demand from N56,000 to N66,500. It said “to determine the appropriate level of minimum wage in the country today, four approaches have been adopted. The first approach is based on a comparative analysis of Nigeria’s minimum wage with prevailing minimum wage in a number of other African countries.

The second approach is based on an estimate of the monthly cost of providing basic need to a family of six. The third measure is based on estimates of a living wage for Nigeria (Lagos state) produced by an independent study. The fourth approach is based on adjusting the minimum wage for the underlying increase in the cost of living over time.

“Irrespective of the current economic situation, the argument can be made that the Nigerian minimum wage should not fall below the average minimum wage in Africa. The argument is usually made that because different countries have differing costs of living, a straight comparison of wages is like comparing oranges and apples. To avoid this problem, the wages need to be adjusted for difference in the cost of living. The accepted practice is tsk use Purchasing Power Parity indices to adjust the wages.”

Labour argued that “the emerging best practices globally is to base the minimum wage on the concept of living wage, rather than basic need which most times leaves the worker in poverty”, adding that “it is instructive to note that Ghana has recently adopted the framework of the living age approach in computing her minimum wage”.

It argue that independent study of the wage indicator foundation of living wage levels in Nigeria came out with a range of N58,500 as N87,90 for a picas family, stressing that “taking the mi point of this range, e representative living wage should be N73,200 per month”

In a recent interview with The Nation, President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Ayuba Wabba said organised Labour considered the current realities in the country, certain variables and current inflation in the country to make an upward review of its demand.

He said that the new submission from Labour was not different from the initial submission, saying “we made a demand almost two years ago and that demand was the beginning of the process. The demand of Labour was based on the agreement we had  on the five year circle which we believe was due and also considering the level off  inflation, we made a demand of N56,000.

At the tripartite level, after the committee was constituted by Mr. President, all state governors and employers of Labour, including the private sector and organised Labour were requested to resubmit their memorandum to the committee for discussion to commence.”

He disclosed that some “states have submitted their own memorandum, the federal government have submitted their own and NECA have submitted theirs. Jointly, Labour has resubmitted their own memo. But what we did was to look at the dynamics of the times because the discussion will be evidence based. So, we undertook a study and made a submission. This is the logic and not that we have submitted a new position.

It was the same memo that we submitted, but what what we did was to look at the indices because a lot have changed between 2015 and 2018. So that cannot be regarded as a change of position because the process of arriving at a minimum wage in line with convention 121 is evidence based. Everybody submitting memo or document will have to back it up with logic and not just quote figures from the air.

“If due to inflation, there has been minor changes, we thought that should be done because we felt that is what the opportunity is meant for. That document has been submitted and not a new document. It is just that we felt that there are new Variables which we felt should be strengthened.

Every variable that is supposed to be considered for a discussion on the new minimum wage has been considered. We looked at the current realities to present a very robust position especially inflation. They are variables that are outside our control which you mu use. Clearly, what I want to inform you about is that we are committed to what we have. Yes, we have changed the variables, but the principles and the logic has not changed. Every other Organisation will do same.

“Even at the tripartite level, every memo is presented by the Organisation which will be made public during the public hearing at different location across the country and each states is expected to make their presentation.

Some states have made their presentations to us which. We felt is reasonable. For now, NECA, Labour and states have made their presentation and they are already being considered.

The public hearing will begin on the 23rd of April across the six geopolitical zones and states within each zone will converge at the venue and organised Labour in the zones will also make presentations. We have give Lagos and Abuja an additional space. We have received notices to tidy up the process of public hearing.”

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