Today, the organised labour in Nigeria, represented by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), joins its counterparts around the world to celebrate this year’s May Day amidst harsh economic conditions. It is, indeed, a time for introspection and self-appraisal by the organised labour in respect of the struggle to improve the living standard and work conditions of the Nigerian worker.
May Day, Labour Day or International Workers’ Day, began in Europe as a traditional spring celebration to welcome Summer, while the first Monday of every May is usually a bank holiday for labourers and workers. The US and Canada observe same workers’ holiday on the first Monday of September. The Catholic Church dedicates May 1 to Saint Joseph the worker. What began as a pagan holiday is now celebrated with marches and rallies across the world.
In Nigeria, it is also a day of speeches and demands for better working conditions and a myriad of problems bedeviling the average Nigerian worker ranging from poor and irregular payment of wages and allowances to inhuman conditions of service. The dominant narrative today will, no doubt, centre on the national minimum wage that most state governments have failed to implement. In 2018, Labour demanded N72,000, $200 equivalent then, as new national minimum wage up from its earlier demand of N56,000 the previous year.
The minimum wage struggle began in Nigeria in 1981, and was predicated on $200 which was a far cry from the N18,000 national minimum wage the Nigerian workers were condemned to for several years despite the punishing inflationary grip.
Following the persistent demand by labour for the upward review of the national minimum wage, President Muhammadu Buhari on November 26, 2017 inaugurated a 30-man Tripartite National Minimum Wage Committee, calling on the members to come up with a fair and decent wage for Nigerian workers.
Inaugurating the committee in the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Buhari said that re-negotiation of a new national minimum wage had become imperative because the existing minimum wage instrument had since expired. The president noted that the subject of a national minimum wage for the federation was within the Exclusive Legislative List of the 1999 Constitution. He, therefore, enjoined the committee members to “go above the basic social protection floor for all Nigerian workers, based on the ability of each tier of government to pay”.
At the end of the day, the new national minimum wage was raised to N30,000. But even then, many states could not implement the new pay, blaming their failure on dwindling revenue to them from the federal government.
Nigerian workers should be commended for their resilience, industry and patience. Some of them in some cases go for several months without salary as well as contend with a highly volatile economic, political and social environment amidst high insecurity.
We seize the opportunity of the International Workers’ Day to congratulate the NLC on the 45th anniversary of its existence in March, this year. The umbrella body is now under a new leadership. The immediate past helmsmen of the body derailed in its mandate to engender good governance at all levels of government as well as ensuring good bargain for all and sundry. Gone are the days when Nigerians saw the NLC as a bulwark against unfriendly policies thrown up by their public and private sector employers. The general impression was that the NLC had compromised, thus abandoning the masses to their own devices.
It is hoped that the new leadership of the NLC put in place a few months before the inauguration of a new government in May, this year, will bring back the glory of the body under the leadership of the likes of the late Michael Imoudu, Hassan Sunmonu and Adams Oshiomhole. The fear of the three musketeers was the beginning of wisdom!
Nigerians look forward to the re-enactment of the Halcyon days under the new leadership of the NLC and its affiliates. However, it is expedient to remind the leadership of the body that while it is its right to demand better living conditions from the government for its members, such action should not be at the expense and discomfort of their fellow Nigerians. It has a duty to make government responsive and accountable to the generality of the Nigerian people.
Aluta continua!
