Minimum wage: Labour leaders shun parley with House committee

Efforts by the House of Representatives to stop the nationwide strike proposed by the labour over the delay in concluding negotiations on the consequential adjustment in the new national minimum wage failed on Tuesday as labour leaders were conspicuously absent at a meeting convened by the lawmakers to address the matter.

The House Committee on Labour, Employment and Productivity had summoned the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) to a meeting on Tuesday with a view to finding a possible solution to the matter.

The Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Ali Wudil Mohammed informed members of the committee that the NLC leaders sent a letter on their inability to be at the meeting and asked for the meeting to be rescheduled.
” The NLC leaders requested for the meeting to be rescheduled due to ongoing negotiation with the Federal Government on the matter,” he said.

He, however, said the TUC representatives have not officially communicated the lawmakers on their absence.
The Committee chairman said the intention of the Committee was to meet with the leadership of organised labour to hear from them before meeting with the Minister of Labour and Employment with a view to finding common ground and prevent a possible industrial action.

Wudil added: “The speaker didn’t appoint this Committee in error because he knows that we can deliver and we’re going to deliver. That is why we decided to invite labour leaders to our inaugural meeting, but unfortunately, they couldn’t come.

“And I’m using this medium to appeal to my colleagues that as chairman, I need their support to be able to function effectively as chairman. I am an engineer by training and each and every one of us here is a professional in one field or the other and I urge us to bring our wealth of experience to bear in the discharge of our duties.”

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