The Nigerian Labour Congress is on a collision with the federal government over a major dispute involving the minimum wage for workers. The strike has gained support among sections of the working class in the oil-producing West African state.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Wednesday, 10 November 2010 00:00
Nigeria Guardian
From Madu Onuorah (Abuja), Charles Ogugbuaja (Owerri), Dele Fanimo, Wole Shadare, Olumuyiwa Kehinde (Lagos) and Charles Coffie-Gyamfi (Abeokuta)
Arewa urges dialogue, CPC backs unions
LAST minute efforts were initiated by the Presidency yesterday evening to avert today’s proposed strike by organised Labour.
President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan hurriedly cancelled his official visit to Lagos to lead the Federal Government’s delegation to an emergency talk yesterday evening with representatives of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
The President said his administration meant well for the Nigerian workers and asked their umbrella bodies to give him time to meet their demand for better pay.
In a statement issued yesterday afternoon, Special Adviser to the President (Media and Publicity), Mr. Ima Niboro, explained that the government’s delegation to the talks included Vice President Namadi Sambo, Minister of Finance Segun Aganga, Minister of Labour, Chukwuemeka Wogu, and other ministers.
Niboro said: “In the overriding interest of the nation, President Jonathan urges Labour leaders, once again, to embrace continued dialogue on the issue of a new national minimum wage.
“The President wishes to reassure Nigeria’s labour force of the present administration’s continuing commitment to progressively work towards achieving realistic salaries and wages for all Nigerian workers as evidenced by the increase in the salaries of Federal Government’s employees implemented last month.
“It is President Jonathan’s expectation that after reviewing government’s plan for a new national minimum wage in the shortest possible time, which will be presented to them today, Labour leaders will show good faith by calling off the planned strike with all its attendant negative consequences for the national economy.”
Earlier yesterday, the Senate Committee on Labour met with the leadership of NLC and TUC pleading for more time. Its chairman, Wilson Ake, assured Labour that it would expedite action on the bill whenever it was sent to the National Assembly. Ake urged the unions to reduce the strike to one day for the sake of the economy, but Labour insisted that only its NEC can do so.
Ahead of the government-Labour talks, state officials of the NLC and TUC yesterday afternoon directed their members to proceed on the strike. The union leaders however urged their members to watch out for any directive from them. In Imo State, officials of the NLC and TUC yesterday morning directed workers in both the private and public sectors to comply with the unions’ directive to begin a three-day warning strike from today to press on their demand for N18,000 monthly minimum wage.
NLC Chairman Romanus Nduka and his TUC counterpart, Johnson Oyekaba, who addressed the workers at 10.30 a.m. at the State Secretariat, Port Harcourt Road, Owerri, said Nigerian workers can no longer continue to live with the current pittance called salary.
The NLC Acting Secretary in the state, Austin Chilakpu moderated the open session, which lasted for an hour.
Nduka warned: “We are over cheated. After today (yesterday’s) work, you are advised to stay at home for the strike.”A letter on the decisions reached by the parent unions was read to the workers.Nduka said the decision on the strike was taken by the National Executive Council (NEC) of NLC in Abuja on October 27, 2010.
According to him, the unions resolved that all workers in Nigeria would embark on a three-day warning strike from today to Friday. The SEC of Imo NLC met on Monday and ratified the state participation.
Also, workers in Ogun State have resolved to join the strike.
A statement issued by the “Joint National Strike Committee” of the various unions directed all workers at the federal, state and local council levels to join the strike. The committee comprises members from all the three tiers of government.
Copies of the statement, entitled: “General strike starts Wednesday, November 10, 2010” were posted on the walls of the Federal and state ministries and schools.
Part of the statement read: “Since government does not want Nigerian workers to have better minimum wage and higher salaries, the NLC has directed that a nationwide warning strike should hold from Wednesday, 10th to Friday, November 12, 2010”.
At the 2010 Lagos International Trade Fair, some Nigerians have raised fears that the warning strike would affect activities at the fair.
They welcomed the strike, saying it was long over due. As a result of the planned strike, the venue of the fair witnessed a large turn out of visitors yesterday.
Similarly, workers in the major aviation unions such as Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN), National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) and others will today join the NLC strike.
In a notification letter sent to all branches of the unions at the airports and signed by the General Secretary of ATSSSAN, Frank Sunny Aiyede, the union asked all its members to join the strike if the government failed to accede to the request of the workers.
The letter was copied to the Commissioner of Police, Lagos Airport Command and the Director, State Security Service (SSS).
The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has urged the workers not to shift their stand in what it termed a “deserved demand for pay rise.”
Reacting to the logjam in discussions between government and Labour, the party asked the government to imbibe the culture of honouring agreements reached with Labour.
CPC National Publicity Secretary, Dennis Aghanyan, said it is irresponsible for any government to reach an understanding with any union or individual only to start giving excuses when it was time to implement it.
The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) also appealed to the government to dialogue with NLC over the strike to prevent its unsavoury effects on Nigerians.The Kaduna State chapter of the NLC yesterday ordered banks operating in the state to comply with the strike and shut their doors to customers. In a statement in Kaduna yesterday, the ACF warned that the strike might engender untoward hardship for Nigerians.
The statement signed by the ACF National Publicity Secretary, Anthony Sani, said: “While the forum appreciates the need for living wages for all workers in Nigeria and the need for thorough consideration on the part of the government of this matter of national importance, it is the considered view of ACF that the management of this Labour dispute should not cause untold hardship on the people whom both the government and the workers profess to serve.”
Nigerian unions call off 3-day strike over anemic minimum wages in oil-rich nation
By JON GAMBRELL , Associated Press
Last update: November 10, 2010 - 11:35 AM
LAGOS, Nigeria - In oil-rich Nigeria, where tycoons race Italian sports cars down potholed roads and rents get paid years in advance, the minimum wage sits at only $50 a month.
Labor groups say such wages cripple those working in Africa's most populous nation while legislators and top officials receive salaries and perks often exceeding those in Western countries. Upset by the minimum wage, trade unions took to Nigeria's streets Wednesday as part of a warning strike to bring the government in line with a promise to boost the minimum wage to $150 a month.
By Wednesday afternoon, the union leaders told journalists in Abuja they would end the strike at midnight after receiving assurances from the president to raise the minimum wage. They held out the possibility of a prolonged strike if the government doesn't act.
However, activists warn even $150 is too low to support families in major cities like Lagos, as inflation continues to chew away at earnings.
"Our struggle is just not about minimum wage; our struggle is also about the strategy driving the economy," said Abiodun Aremu, a labor organizer in the city of 14 million.
Nigeria reaps billions of dollars a year in oil sales, with much of the easily refined crude being shipped to the U.S. to supply its voracious appetite for gasoline. Much of that money gets funneled into federal and state budgets in a nation routinely described by analysts as one of the world's most corrupt. Meanwhile, roads remain rutted and power comes in fits.
World Bank statistics suggest more than 80 percent of people in Nigeria, a country home to 150 million, earn less than $2 a day. Many find employment through petty trading, farming and the odd jobs that populate the nation's largely unregulated employment market.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo increased minimum wages for government employees in 2000 to 7,500 naira — about $75 at the exchange rate then. The rate has plummeted since, with the same amount of naira now worth about $50. Those wages carry even less value as inflation, pegged at 12.4 percent last year alone, cuts into earnings.
Despite last-minute negotiations by President Goodluck Jonathan, the Nigerian Labor Congress and the Trade Union Congress launched the planned three-day strike Wednesday. At Lagos' Murtala Muhammed International Airport, local airlines reported union employees had disrupted flights. Streets in Lagos saw few cars and buses running in motorways typically gripped by gridlock during daylight hours. Banks and other businesses sat closed.
"Our conscience is clear," said Peter Esele, the leader of the Trade Union Congress.
A group of labor union activists took to the streets of Yaba, a Lagos neighborhood, waving signs Wednesday calling for higher wages and urging the public to "Defeat Capitalism B 4 It Kills Us." However, life went on for the petty traders working along the neighborhood's narrow streets, selling mobile phone charges, bras and food. Some even proffered photos showing curtains for sale.
At a shop selling luggage, a 57-year-old man who called himself Bernard watched the activists march down the street before shrugging and turning back to his wares.
"There's plenty of money in Nigeria," he said. "Nigeria has oil. Nigeria has everything. ... But we're just managing to survive."
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