The organized labour rejected the latest offer of N54,000 minimum wage made by the Federal Government during the resumed national minimum wage negotiation on Tuesday even as the meeting stalemated.
It, would, however, resume on Wednesday as the labour leaders and government representatives failed to reach a common ground.
It would be the third time the labour and the government could not agree on the national minimum wage.
It would be recalled that last week, the labour leaders stormed out of the meeting hosted by the tripartite committee on minimum wage negotiation after the Federal Government offered to pay N48,000.
The Organised Private Sector had on the onset offered N54,000 in response to labour’s proposed N615,000.
The National President of the NLC, Joe Ajaero, maintained that N615,000 minimum wage was not negotiable, saying the amount was arrived at after an analysis of the current economic situation and the needs of an average Nigerian family of six.
He accused the government of failing to provide any substantiated data to support its offer, noting that this undermined the credibility of the negotiation.
To persuade the labour to return for negotiation, The Chairman of the Tripartite Committee on National Minimum Wage, Alhaji Bukar Goni, informed the group that the government had agreed to raise the N48,000 it earlier proposed.
Even when the labour returned at the Tuesday meeting, it still rejected the government’s proposed N54,000 and stood by its N615,000 living wage demand.
The Deputy President of NLC Political Commission, Prof. Theophilus Ndubuaku, has accused the Federal Government of deliberately frustrating the Nigerian worker.
Ndubuaku said the government was not showing empathy despite knowing that the masses were struggling to adjust to the hardship and inflation occasioned by its policies.
He said, “We are worried about this government. It was as if we were negotiating with people who were not Nigerians. They are behaving like expatriates or people from outer space. We do
