It’s good that Labour has allowed motive to prevail, therefore suspending its indefinite strike launched into to demand a ₦494,000 nationwide minimal wage and the speedy reversal of the current electrical energy tariff hike. However the want for a pay rise for Nigerian staff is indeniable. The urgent difficulty lies in figuring out the suitable share improve.
Additionally, I’m totally in help of Labour’s demand for the reversal of the electrical energy tariff improve. This hike is callous and exhibits a sheer lack of empathy from the federal government, significantly provided that this improve and the discriminatory segregation of Nigerian energy customers into Bands are occurring amidst insurance policies which have considerably impoverished many Nigerians.
The federal government’s elimination of the gas subsidy, floating of the naira, improve in rates of interest, and subsequent electrical energy tariff hike imply that Nigerians, together with small enterprise homeowners, are going through increased prices for energy consumption. That is incompatible with the federal government’s professed objectives of attracting overseas traders, assuaging poverty, and decreasing unemployment. A authorities implementing these measures can’t convincingly declare to be addressing unemployment and poverty.
With an unemployment fee exceeding 41 % and 63 % of the inhabitants deemed multi-dimensionally poor, the federal government ought to prioritize social welfare insurance policies. As a substitute, it retains adhering to anti-poor financial insurance policies imposed by Bretton Woods establishments that don’t want us to progress and compete with their paymasters. In mild of this, I help Labour’s demand for an instantaneous reversal of the electrical energy tariff hike, which seems to be a deliberate effort to additional impoverish Nigerians.
Unrealistic demand
Relating to Labour’s main demand of a ₦494,000 minimal wage, I strongly disagree with the employees’ union, as it’s not a sensible demand. Neither the Nigerian authorities nor the non-public sector can afford to pay staff a ₦494,000 minimal wage now or within the foreseeable future. Labour’s insistence on N494,000 minimal wage is a joke taken too far.
Negotiations for wage improve, whether or not with public or non-public sector employers, ought to be pushed by the power to pay, with consideration additionally given to the willingness to pay. On this context, one wonders if Labour is demanding a minimal civil service wage or a nationwide minimal wage.
It seems that Labour is negotiating for a minimal civil service wage quite than a nationwide minimal wage, which ought to apply to all employers. If Labour has states and personal sector gamers in thoughts, it wouldn’t have been making this outrageous supply. If the Labour insist on having this humongous quantity as minimal wage, which is clearly not possible anyway, then we could as properly be giving room for mass retrenchment with all of the attendant penalties.
I imagine that states and even the non-public sector ought to be allowed to find out their minimal wage with a benchmark which it shouldn’t go under clearly outlined. Expertise has proven that nationwide minimal wages are hardly ever carried out by all employers largely due to the problem of capability to pay.
When the nationwide minimal wage regulation was handed in 2019, not all states carried out it as a consequence of variations in accessible assets. Whereas some states may afford to implement it and nonetheless undertake infrastructure initiatives, others couldn’t.
For example, some states struggled to implement the ₦30,000 wage partially, utilizing a template that discriminated in opposition to senior civil servants, whereas Zamfara State didn’t implement it in any respect. It was solely not too long ago that the incumbent governor, Dauda Lawal Dare, introduced that the state would start paying the ₦30,000 minimal wage. Earlier governors, Abdulazeez Yari and Mohammed Bello Matawale, ignored the minimal wage regulation.
The place was Labour when Zamfara State didn’t pay the minimal wage? What assure does Labour have that Zamfara, which has simply begun implementing the nationwide minimal wage regulation, will undertake the brand new wage? Can different states and most non-public organizations afford this, assuming even when the federal authorities can?
Labour is sort of conscious that years after the ₦30,000 minimal wage regulation was signed, some state governments and the non-public organisations nonetheless haven’t carried out it, citing numerous causes, together with a scarcity of funds amidst competing calls for. As a matter of truth, greater than 40 % of personal corporations aren’t paying the prevailing minimal wage of N30,000 and right here we’ve got Labour speaking of N495,000!
Uniform wage not possible
Is uniform implementation of the minimal wage construction sensible? Organized labour insists on uniform implementation regardless of figuring out the huge disparities in useful resource allocation and availability amongst states. There may be additionally the problem of variation of companies. What do the civil servants even do? Can a nationwide minimal wage adopted by the federal authorities adequately deal with the distinctive circumstances of every state and even a few of the non-public organisations?
The implications of this demand appear misplaced on organized labour. Does Labour significantly imagine that the non-public sector will pay the demanded wage and nonetheless stay in enterprise? How a lot will we pay our home employees? If a nationwide minimal wage as demanded by organized Labour is carried out, can we nonetheless afford to retain these home employees? Would such an exorbitant wage demand not exacerbate inflation? Can non-public colleges, eating places, filling stations, supermarkets, and malls afford to pay their staff such excessive wages and nonetheless keep in enterprise?
As somebody within the administration cadre of a number one media group, I do know firsthand that the majority private-owned media organizations, identical to numerous different non-public organisations, can’t afford the wage demanded by organized Labour.
It’s time for the Nigerian public to interact Labour on its unrealistic demand for a ₦494,000 minimal wage. Accepting this demand would imply the federal government printing more cash to pay salaries, resulting in inflation that might additional weaken the naira. If the federal government yields to Labour’s demand, it should turn into a authorities that exists solely to pay salaries, which is unsustainable.
As the controversy over the brand new nationwide minimal wage continues, we should not neglect the significance of contemplating the power to pay in each monetary transaction.