NLC ready for show down with FG & Govs over New Wage Review

The Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) started courting trouble with labour few weeks ago when they met at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, and announced they can no longer pay the N18,000 national minimum wage. According to them, it was introduced when the price of crude oil was $126 per barrel, arguing that now that it had plunged to about $41 per barrel the states could no longer afford to pay.

But in a quick riposte, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) declared that it was ready to take on any of the states that reviews the minimum wage and advised the governors to cut wasteful expenditure in order to meet their obligations to workers in their states.

The threat by NLC forced some states such as Rivers, Edo and Ekiti to back out of the decision taken by the NGF, with some stating that they shall continue to implement the minimum wage.

However, the chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum and Zamfara state governor, Abdulaziz Yari, last Thursday insisted that irrespective of public condemnations of the plan, it would not be economically feasible to retain the same workforce and pay same amount of money.

http://leadership.ng/news/481597/national-minimum-wage-labour-plans-ambush-govs