Nigeria Labour Congress NLC Ebonyi state chapter has insisted that minimum wage is their right and not a privilege.
They out rightly refused the #22,500 naira new minimum wage proposed by Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) made it clear that the 30,000 naira initially proposed by them should be paid.
In an excusive chat Blueprint, some labour leaders in Abakaliki revealed that workers in the state were not happy with the development but rather described NGF decisions as ridiculous.
A factional Chairman of NLC in Ebonyi State comrade Ikechukwu Nwafor, lamented why the federal government should deviate from N30,000.00 it earlier agreed to pay.
He advised governors that feel they cannot pay to go back to their state and negotiate with workers.
His words, “The federal government should go ahead to approve N30,000.00, any governor who feels he cannot pay the N30,000.00 should go to his state and tell the workers in his state that he cannot pay.
“I believe that our workers in all the states have an immediate answer to any governor who say he cannot pay, because they know their environment and how their government spends money and know whether the governor can pay or not.
“It should not be an umbrella thing that governors cannot pay. There are some governors that have written memorandum to the tripartite committee, that they can even pay more than the N30,000.00.
“Some governors like Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano state and some other states are willing to pay above N30,000.00. Some are willing to pay N30,000.00, some gave N27,000.00,some gave N28,000.00.
“So, it is not an issue of governors coming together to say they cannot pay. We have documents and fact of various governors memorandum. Let the federal government approve the N30,000.00 .
“Of course, all our workers are in the 36 states and Abuja; we have an already made answer to such governors.
“We are not negotiating. We are going on strike on 6th of November. It is an indefinite strike and that is where we are.
“All the states in the federation are going the strike and that is the directive. The directive stands unless otherwise before that day they decided to pay.
“The Nigerian workers should have known that there is no time they can get anything from the political class that is easy. We should stand firm for our right.
“Minimum wage is not a privilege. It is a constitutional right. The message is that everybody should be ready to fight that minimum wage because when the minimum wage comes, it will affects the business class and otherwise.
“It is unfortunate that it is only in Nigeria when you hear workers’ salary are to be increased, but when the political class salary is increased, nobody hears about it.
Equally a factional Secretary of the union in the state Comrade Chukwuma Onwe, described the agreement of the Nigeria Governors Forum as ridiculous.
He requested federal government to increase allocations of state government to enable them pay the N30,000.00 labour proposed new minimum wage.
“The issue is beyond anybody. It is a national issue and going by the economic reality on ground, you can see that what the governors are saying about N22,500 cannot take anybody anywhere.
“When N18,000.00 was approved as minimum wage dollar was N152 per dollar. Today, dollar is between N350 to N450.00 and they are saying they will be able to pay N22,500.
“What it means is that what will be added to the minimum wage on ground is N4,500.00. What does that mean?
