The federal government has set up a committee on national minimum wage for workers. Going by precedents, workers in the private sector are apprehensive as they have not benefitted from past reviews, as ELEOJO IDACHABA finds out in this report.
President inaugurates committee
When on November 23, 2017 President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated a 30- man committee under the chairmanship of the former Head of Service of the Federation, Ms Ama Pepple, to negotiate a new minimum wage structure for workers, it was a first sign of victory for organised labour.
The committee is made up of persons from the public sector, members from federal and state governments and the private sector. Representing the latter is the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA), Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce Industry Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) and Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME).
On the other hand, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, Minister of Budget and Planning, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun and Head of Service Winifred Oyo-Ita, as well as Mr Roy Ugo, the Permanent Secretary, General Services in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation represent the government on the committee. Similarly, the Director General of Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Mr Asishana Okauru, is on the committee as an observer.
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, is heading the organized labour team, which comprises Comrade Peters Adeyemi, Comrade Kiri Mohammed, Comrade Amechi Asugwuni and Peter Ozo-Eson. Comrade Bobboi Kaigama, on the other hand, is leading the Trade Union Congress (TUC), together with Sunday Salako and Alade Lawal.
On the employers’ side are Olusegun Oshinowo, Director General, Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA, including other members like Timothy Olawale and Chuma Nwankwo.
The Director General, Federation of Construction Industry (FOCI) Olubunmi Adekoje; Chairman, Kaduna East Branch of MAN, Alhaji Ahmed Gobir and Mr Francis Oluwagbenro, also on the MAN team.
For a long time, the Nigerian Labour Congress(NLC) has been clamouring for a new national minimum wage since the beginning of the current administration. So, the above tripartite committee, which comprises cabinet members and serving governors, employers of labour and representatives of workers’ unions, was hailed by all and sundry when it was inaugurated.
However, the presence of some elements on the committee was greeted with scepticism. According to organised labour, the recommendation of the committee may not see the light of day, because of the presence of some governors like Ogbemi Rauf Aregbesola, the governor of Osun state and Imo state Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha .In these states, workers are groaning under the burden of unpaid salaries for months on end.
However, notwithstanding this misgiving, labour is bent on getting a minimum wage for Nigerian workers as Comrade Wabba, the NLC president said that the real battle has now began. According to him, NLC ‘’will not settle for anything below 56,000 naira as the minimum wage even though we share our scepticism about some governors on the committee.”
What the minimum wage law says
As the wage committee plans to begin sitting, Nigerians are waiting to know how the interest of the private sector can be accommodated in the proposed minimum wage. This apprehension is anchored on past precedents when workers of the private sector didn’t benefit from such salary increases.
Specifically, most employers in the private sector are in breach of the Minimum National Wage Act of 1999, especially section 1 and 3. According to the act, only establishments with less than 50 workers in their employment are exempted from paying the agreed salary.
Similarly, establishments whose workers are employed on a part time basis, which means a duration of less than 40 hours per week are exempted. Also, establishment at which workers are paid on Commission basis, workers in seasoned employment and workers employed in a vessel or aircraft to which the law regulating merchant shipping or civil aviation apply will not be paid minimum wage.
Private sector workers short changed
For most of the people in the private sector, except those who are employed by banks and multinational companies, the minimum wage sounds like a fairy tale. For example, Mrs Esther Yusuf has been a teacher in a private school in Abuja since 1999 when federal civil servants and indeed some workers in the organised private sector began to enjoy the approved minimum wage. Till date, she has not benefitted from it, about 17 years after the first one was approved.
According to her, “I have never enjoyed what they call minimum wage since I started teaching in 1999. I can recall that in that year, the regime of Gen Abdusalami Abubakar raised the minimum wage of workers from what it used to be then to 5,000 naira. Some of us were so excited that, at least, if that is the minimum amount that must be paid to any worker in the country, one can live comfortably. As at that time, my total salary was less than 4,000 naira. I was, however, disappointed that when the new wage was being implemented for civil servants, some of my colleagues in the school who dared the school authoritieson the matter were sacked. Today, I’m a head teacher in another school but here, there is nothing like minimum wage.”
Mrs Yusuf’s experience is not different from many Nigerians in the private sector. According to Blueprint Weekend’s investigations, successive governments never took steps to enforce the law in the private sector which constitutes the largest employer of labour. As a result, there is a wide disparity in the disposable incomes among all the workers in the country, even amongst those with the same qualifications, between workers of public and private sectors.
Experts explain
According to Austin Nweze, an economist and senior lecturer with Pan Atlantic University, Lagos “in countries like Singapore which has one of the best economies in the world, there is an enabling Act that compels every employer of labour to comply with the income Act. If any employer is, for any agreeable reason, unable to pay the stipulated minimum wage, the government steps in to pay any shortfall but that is not the case here.” He further said that previous wage increases were not workers-friendly, especially artisans and those in the informal sector.
The don also doubts the ability of states to pay the proposed minimum wage. ‘’As far as I know, only a few states like Lagos, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and may be Anambra can actually pay any newly approved minimum wage,’’ he said. Mr Nweze advocates that everything that concerns incomes and wages should be put on the Concurrent List. “I wish the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) will use the opportunity provided in the new wage committee to do a holistic work on a new, realistic salary structure for all Nigerians whether in the private or public sector,” he further said.
According to him, a legislation that prescribes penalty for any offender is the only panacea to sanity in any new salary structure.
Also speaking in the same vein, Rev Fr Gabriel Osu of the Catholic Secretariat, Lagos said there is nothing wrong with the demand of labour for a new salary structure in line with the current inflationary trend. He said, “ What is wrong is that at the end of the day, the informal sector would be short changed because there is no enabling Act that queries any violation of failure to pay the right amount of salary;the system is very porous for manipulation and this is the reason we have so many unemployed and under employed Nigerians exploited by employers of labour.”
Afenifere speaks
Speaking on the same issue, the Yoruba socio-cultural organisation ,Afenifere, rising from its monthly meeting in Ibadanrecently said there still exists certain grey areas that need to be addressed in the new wage that is being canvassed.
In a statement by its spokesperson, Comrade Yinka Odumakin, the organisation said, “It is right that the federal government has put up a committee to renegotiate the minimum wage for workers but we see a problem here. This whole unitary stance that we are maintaining by putting in the Exclusive List that only the federal government can negotiate on, will create its own problem because the federal government will negotiate for federal workers as well as states and local government workers whereas it is a different tier that will bear the pains.”
As the argument continues, workers in the private sector are watching what will befall them after the new minimum wage comes to being.
